


there's beauty in a work in progress

by cactusandalily



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Lesbian AU, Nudity, mentions of past EDs, painter katya and dancer trixie, stage fright
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-02-28 19:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13278453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactusandalily/pseuds/cactusandalily
Summary: Katya is a painter who needs a model: in comes Trixie Mattel, struggling dancer and self-doubter. It shouldn't make any sense that Trixie has stage fright but it's definitely on board with posing nude for a stranger, but that's Trixie; she can hold the perfect arabesque but get mute in front of a crowd clutching her guitar. And she can get frozen in place while Katya's eyes are on her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! First time writing AU, but the idea of painter Katya wouldn't let me be. And then I couldn't shake off dancer Trixie either, even if my knowledge of proper technique is embarrassing. So a big big thanks to Becca @thesemovingparts for answering my dumb questions and getting me hooked up on Spyashchaya krasavitsa/ The Sleeping Beauty and Martha Graham!
> 
> Come say hi over at tumblr.com/cactus-and-a-lily and let me know what you think there or in the comments here

“Remind me to not show up to any other ballet audition Violet Chachki also goes to”. Trixie drops her bag with her leotard and slippers by the door, and heads directly to their kitchen without stopping to say hi to Kim. Her friend and roommate is hunched over the table, custom mixing pigments for her consultation tomorrow. When she comes back to the living room Kim points out that Trixie is not that into ballet anyways.

“I know, but I haven’t even gotten a part as an understudy and this one actually paid decent money. You should see the way these girls look at me” Trixie lets out a frustrated sigh “it’s like I’m a joke just because I’ve never toured with a company or did Tchaikovsky professionally. And yes, I don’t even want to do ballet my whole life, but even freaking Barbie did The Nutcracker! I swear to God if I get cast in another _Hairspray_ production as Penny Pingleton I’m going to go back to college and get a business degree”

Kim snaps her head up and looks solemn. “You don’t mean that. Trixie, take that back, please. Don’t bring me any more distress, having to deal with a bunch of sixty year old women wanting to look like a baby slut fresh out of the Disney channel is more than enough for me. Don’t joke about business school.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I mentioned it and I’m sorry you had to go through 4 years of corporate finance and valuation”

“Thank you.” Kim grabs the notepad they keep by the phone and that only Kim uses, and reads off it with an exasperated tone “Trannika called. They need you to fill in on Tuesday night, apparently one of the girls found a gig in New York and left them high and dry to figure out how to cover her spot”.

“And why didn’t she texted me to let me know?” Trixie tries to keep her voice devoid of any emotion, but can feel her body vibrating with excitement about performing.

“Because she asked me to convince you not to flake when you find out it’s a singing gig.” Kim fixes her eyes on her, careful to read her expression.

Trixie just looks at her and grabs the notepad, tears off the paper and crumbles it into a ball. “Can’t do. Have to work on Tuesday and Pearl won’t cover for me another time”. Surprisingly Kim doesn’t put up a fight like she usually does when it comes to this, and just asks Trixie to at least call Trannika and tell her herself.

Later in the shower Trixie allows herself a wallow and some pity about how much of a coward she is, and kicks herself for passing out on a paying performance, even if it’s just in tips. When she sets her alarm before bed she reassures herself she can make the money aspect work, like she usually does. She has arranged for a new way to make some extra cash and she won’t have to worry about paying for her lessons at least for the next few weeks. She can afford to say no to performing, and all she has to figure out now is how to bail on Trannika again.

Trixie tosses and turns in bed, listening to Kim’s K-pop playlist playing from across the hall. She glares at her closet door where she knows her guitar is tucked away and turns on her side facing the wall, willing herself not to think about it anymore. She just needs to apply herself to her dancing, and that’s all. Everything else will sort itself.

 

————————————

“Are you sure about this?” Kim asks for the third time since she woke up. Trixie is not a morning person by any standards, even less so when she has to assure her friend that she is a grown up woman capable of making her own decisions.

It was weird already that her new job came through Violet, who knew a friend who knew a friend who needed a dancer to pose for an artist. When Trixie had asked Violet why she didn’t volunteer herself, she had simply said she didn’t fit the artist’s idea of what they wanted their model to look like. It was crazy, since Violet is the most stunning creature Trixie has ever seen. They butted heads in ballet rehearsals and the occasional performances they had to do together, but Trixie knows she is a talented as she is beautiful - only a fool wouldn’t want to paint her. The thing with Violet is that she isn’t a bad person, but can turn into a brat if she doesn’t get her way, and right now her mind was set on Trixie at least shooting the painter an email. Kim was excited and supportive at first, but had been giving Trixie the worried eye ever since she found out she’d have to be posing nude.

“Painters have been doing that for ages, and you have done body painting a few times on naked girls too, you hypocrite!” Trixie had tried to lightened the mood, only to be met with the same concern as before. “Besides, do you think it’s much different when I’m rushing backstage? Everyone who did _Appalachian Spring_ with me saw my bare ass. Dancers have a different approach towards the body.”

Kim was a good friend and had insisted on Trixie at least googling the woman she was going to pose for, which she had completely forgotten to do. Secretly the idea of stripping down and exposing herself excited Trixie, and between her night job as a waitress and her sparse performances, it felt like the most exhilarating job she had done in ages. She didn’t want to ruin that by finding out the artist was some crazy girl who was going to produce some avant-garde painting of her boobs blown out of proportion.

Trixie feels she owns it to herself, to her young self, the one that used to be constantly second guessing her frame in the mirror or that felt that looking too much at her body or her friends’ bodies was something wrong. Now nothing excites her more than the thought of the female figure, its curves and soft spots, the roughness a pose could strike, the power and fragility that a photo or a painting could capture when a beautiful woman was its subject. Her ego peaks up when she imagines a rendering of her naked self would be shown somewhere some day, the biggest fuck you to her bullies and the people who had brought her down.

She thinks of the women back in Wisconsin, always looking down at her and her siblings for their home made clothes when they were little. She thinks of the girls in her dance classes pulling off the perfect tutu and looking flawless in their tights and tops, smirking when the teacher handed Trixie a one piece leotard. She thinks of her stepdad yelling at her for not dressing like her friends as she got older, calling her a “walking costume circus”. She remembers how nervous she had felt in college wearing a short tight skirt with a yellow top that tied in the front, the outfit engraved in her mind, and how all eyes had been on her that night. That was the first time she had felt exhilarated from the attention rather than aggravated, the first time she had considered that the looks people gave her were of admiration instead of disdain. That was a rush unlike any other thing Trixie had felt before, and right now she tries not to think about the memories that followed and just how much she was able to put herself through to keep experiencing that kind of attention.

But today isn’t about her old demons, instead it is about…-she has to curse at her phone for freezing and finally opens her email -… right, _Katya_. She snorts at the pretentiousness that artist types have, and the names they pick for themselves. All her headshots read “Trixie” but that is just a lifelong nickname. Beatrice would look just as weird as “Katya” does. She can imagine what sort of Barbara or Brenda would jump into a Russian exotic name to pump up their visibility. Still, a job is a job. She can fake smile thought it, the same way she does at the cafe.

She arrives at the address pointed out in her directions and re reads the part in the message that states “please don’t ring the doorbell otherwise the owner gets pissed. If I’m late, I’ll make it up with coffee”. Trixie looks one way and then the other, and realizes she has no idea who she is waiting for. She has no clue how this woman looks, what her age is, even if she is really a painter. For all Trixie knows she could be just a woman with a fetish for curvy girls ready to trick her into stripping like Coco in Fame. Or worse… she could be a guy. Trixie shudders at that thought and she clutches her bag tighter to her chest turning around, colliding with the most petite but built frame she has encountered.

“I’m so so sorry! Crap, I’m an idiot. Are you alright?” The blonde woman apologizes to Trixie, and before getting an answer, starts rummaging through her purse. “I’m late, I’m fucking late, I have to figure out these keys, I swear Ginger just does it to spite me, and now-”

“Katya?” Trixie takes a leap of faith. Agitated, ruffled, late: If her experience around creative minds doesn’t fail her, she has her painter right in front of her. Only this is nothing like what she had expected from exchanging two concise emails setting up the payment, time and place of the sessions. This is no basic rich girl turned aspirational bohemian or pretentious hipster with an outfit out of a Pinterest board. This is a small, nymph-like woman with the strength to carry around two big tote bags with canvases, with wavy and messy but not unkempt blonde hair and a prairie flowy dress that is certainly maroon, brown or blue, and simultaneously neither of those.

“Yeah.” She answers with a smile and Trixie adds amazing teeth and lips to her description, as Katya finally manages to pull the keys out, and extends her other hand to shake Trixie’s. “I’m so glad Ginger is out today because she would have thrown a fit if your ringing pulled her out of a sketching session”. She has a chain with no less than 8 keys and has to try two before the third one finally opens the rusty old door.

“Oh, no I didn’t. You said I shouldn’t ring.” Trixie follows her inside, climbing a set of stair towards another door Katya struggles with. She gets it right on the fifth try this time and triumphantly leads them into the space.

“Good, I like a girl who knows how to take directions. Should come in handy later” she says with a smirk and goes around to turn on the lights, even if most of the light is coming from a big window behind her.

Trixie looks around at the small room where six chairs are arranged in a semi circle and a platform is set in the middle. Next to one of the walls there is a small sink packed with mismatched glasses filled with brushes. She wonders if the door opposite from it leads to another room or a bathroom where she could have some privacy, and for the first time that day she feels kind of nervous about having to actually strip down in front of a stranger. She doesn’t have much time to think it over because next thing she knows Katya is moving all the chairs aside and gesturing for Trixie to get down off the platform in the center.

“I never quite liked the whole differentiation of levels in the moment of painting. And I don’t just mean in terms of placement, I felt like I was painting and object and not a person when they were propped like that in the center, elevated and out of my reach, don’t you think?”. Katya is almost talking to herself, while demonstrating again that her small figure does not mean a lack of strength as she rearranges most of the set up of the space by herself. When she finally looks up with a expectant look on her face and her hands on her hips, Trixie realizes she is waiting for an answer. But Trixie is struck by the blue in her eyes and the way they move, like there is a restlessness to them.

“Sure” Trixie just answers, cursing herself for retrieving back to her shell. She wonders where her pride and giddiness from before went to. Katya doesn’t make focusing any easier, moving from side to side of the room and setting up her materials. It’s as if Trixie is not even there. She realizes she is still holding on to her purse and looks for the door by the sink and then back at Katya once more. She is tying her hair in two messy ponytails using rubber bands. She looks like a silly doll that suffered at the hands of an overexcited child with a comb. Trixie decides she is being crazy and letting Kim’s words set her up for failing, and glances at Katya one last time, deciding that while she is still a stranger, she seems like a non-dangerous one.

“Right. Okay, much better this way. So,” Katya finally seems satisfied with her work space and looks at Trixie, who is still standing in the middle of the room “I didn’t get a chance to explain over my emails and I don’t really think Fame cared to tell Violet, but the idea for my project is to make a series of sketch drawings. I’m debating back and forth on using ink and watercolor or just good old regular oil pigment but that shouldn’t be your concern.”

Trixie tries her best to nod in understanding. Katya starts fidgeting with the lace in her dress and she suddenly seems more nervous than Trixie herself, so Trixie just raises her eyebrows in what she hopes is an encouraging expression, urging her to go on.

“Anyways, it’s not gonna be your concern because I’m going to deal with that after you leave. Since I’m going to ask you to hold some uncomfortable poses sometimes, I’m gonna try to sketch it fast. But I can get stuck from time to time, so you’ll probably have to bear with me. Although as a dancer you should be used to that.”

“Great,” Trixie realizes she hasn’t uttered more than ten words since meeting Katya fifteen minutes ago “so when do the clothes come off?”

Katya stops pulling at the thread of the buttons of her sleeve and stares at Trixie with wide eyes, like she was not expecting the question to be asked so bluntly.

“Right, I was segwaying my way into that but I appreciate your directness. Please know that if you can’t make it one day you can let me know, and we can arrange a time frame that would work for us, only thing I can’t give in on is the heater temperature because even though I know you will be literally freezing your ass to death I sweat like a hooker in chu-”

“Katya” Trixie cuts her short. Rambly. Another artistic feature. “When do you need me to strip?”

Katya looks over Trixie’s shoulder, avoiding her eyes and staring at some point fixed in the wall behind her and says “Now would be a good time”.

As Trixie takes off her shirt and pants she looks down at the mark that her jeans have left on her stomach and tries to smooth it out without success. Katya is fussing over her brushes over the sink with her back turned, and in Trixie’s opinion she is taking deliberately more time to do so than needed. By the time Katya has set herself in front of her easel, Trixie is finishing unclasping her bra and hanging it in a nearby chair, her plain light blue underwear following suit. It is indeed just like rushing backstage trying to get into an outfit, only this isn’t as rushed and there is no outfit waiting for her. She walks towards the middle of the room again, facing the window with the curtains half closed, and focuses on following the faded flower pattern with her eyes, waiting for Katya to direct her into a pose or say something. It takes five minutes until Katya seems to snap off whatever daze she is in and step forward.

 

\----------------------

“So was it cold?” Kim asks, carefully restocking her make-up work bag as Trixie walks through the door.

“Was it cold? You were up in arms about me posing naked and worried about this woman, and all you ask me is if it got chilly?”

“You’re home now in one piece and not showing any signs of distress. So I’m over my initial worry. If you tell me you had to be naked for almost an hour in some crappy studio, I do wonder if I’m gonna have to bust out the ginger root tea for you.”

“Yeah, it was a bit cold at first but I got used to it. I’m guessing when my ass will be on the floor or something I’ll feel it more. Until then it was pretty boring” Trixie lays down on their couch, refusing to stare at the clock on the wall telling her in less than 30 minutes she needs to be out for rehearsal and then head to her night shift.

“Is she any good?” Kim asks

“Hell if I know. She didn’t let me look at the sketches because apparently she will finish them up later.”

“That can be nerve wracking for you, I know how you like to be constantly in control. But I get her. I don’t hold a mirror up for people until my looks are done. There isn’t beauty in a work in progress” Kim says as she hangs the bag over her shoulder, signifying she is leaving.

Trixie feels lonely all of the sudden, alone in their little apartment and longing to drift off to sleep in somebody’s arms. What’s the fun in living with your friend if your conversations are limited to you both running into each other in the kitchen? No one tells you that even when you live with your best friend, if you are a struggling dancer in your late twenties getting by as a waitress and your friend has to take any makeup commission that come across, the chances of you two actually enjoying some time together are rare.

Her phone buzzes with a text from Kim. _“Be sure to not fall asleep and to eat something after rehearsal, please Trixie.”_ Trixie would love to do just that, to close her eyes and rest her body, but decides to take Kim’s advice and goes to grab her tap shoes from behind her bed.

She takes a glance at her reflection in the mirror on the side of her door and allows herself just a split second of self-doubt, biting her bottom lip and wondering why Katya didn’t really let her see her painting. She was excited about seeing her figure in the pose Katya had instructed her to follow - careful not to touch her, she had just illustrated with own her body how she wanted Trixie’s head tilted to one side and her hips slightly turned to face the opposite way. She wonders if Katya was displeased with her sketch, or worse, displeased with Trixie’s appearance. She shakes her head like she is trying to force those thoughts out and looks away, reminding herself she doesn’t dwell on those fixations anymore. She grabs her uniform for later and throws it into her gym bag, picking up her phone and heading out.

 

\----------------------

“Miss Mattel, you’re being sloppy today” Alyssa’s twang carries over the room and it feels like everyone is looking at her, and not in a good way. She should be getting through the routine seamlessly like she is supposed to, and can’t think of any excuse to justify the mess she’s been the whole afternoon.

“Alright darling, roll the song. Again just for Miss Mattel” Alyssa instructs Ms. Vivi. Trixie is usually thrilled when Alyssa conducts their rehearsals but today she finds herself longing for Jay’s loud and ridiculous expressions but warmer direction. But as the head of Beyond Belief dance company it’s Alyssa’s prerogative to check on her students whenever she feels necessary. Trixie flinches when she thinks of herself as a student still, two years off college but basically paying her way through classes in the hope of landing a big role. Sometimes it feels like she still has a lot of catching up to do on the dance world. She can tap her way through any stage, put up a fairly impressive contemporary routine and even perform averagely well in a interpretative number. But Alyssa is the best in what she does - no way to put a label on it, just the uniqueness of Alyssa’s style, a wacky combination of jazz and modern- and if Trixie has to keep her lousy waitress job solely to pay her classes she will.

She takes a deep breath and reminds herself that it is all part of her main goal towards becoming a variety performer and tries to calm down. Her neck is a little stiff from holding a pose for 40 minutes for Katya and her last barre practice caused mayhem on her feet, but she knows it’s Alyssa and there’s nothing she can say to justify her bad performance. “Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades” she tells herself, so she looks straight into the mirror and determines herself to slay this. She can make up excuses later.

 

\----------------------

It’s her second time posing for Katya and this time Trixie is the one who is late. Everything that could go wrong that morning did: her phone didn’t charge at night so her alarm didn’t ring, the water heater decided to act up, eliminating the option of showering before heading to the studio even if she had the time. She had no idea where her keys had ended up last night, and it took her a good ten minutes before finding them buried under a mess of hair products Kim must have used earlier before heading out.

When she is finally standing outside the little black door of the studio she is almost twenty minutes late and Trixie’s A-type personality hates this. She is always sure to arrive at least ten minutes early to any place, like her acquired dancer discipline forces her to. As she remembers not to ring like Katya had insisted on, she realizes she has no way to contact her. Awkwardly she shoots her an email with “I’m here” on the subject line and a simple “sorry for being late, couldn’t think of any other way to let you know” on the body of the message. She feels weird when she hits send, and as she risks a glance at her reflection on the window of a parked car, she decides she looks like a mess that’s beyond salvaging. Since she only painted her lashes with some dried up mascara she found in her bag, her makeup -usually a little bit over exaggerated and always polished-, reveals she hasn’t properly slept in ages. The lack of concealer also shows some freckles she even forgot she had, and her lips feel dry and weird without any lipstick on. Her hair, tangled at the roots close to her neck, just lays flat over her chest. If Katya wasn’t pleased with how Trixie looked last time, she is not sure what she is gonna think today.

As Trixie is trying to get a stain out of her worn out Dixie Chicks t-shirt - the same one she slept in, not having time that morning to rumble through her clothes to just take them off later -, Katya opens the door with a smile on her face. She doesn’t look any better than Trixie, but on her it looks like it’s planned and not a testament of the world conspiring against her. She has her long hair pulled into a messy bun held together by two brushes and is wearing some old apron over her dress. Everything on her except her combat boots is covered in splashes of paint and her hands are so red she looks like an extra in a Tarantino movie. Her eyes don’t look restless this time, but sparkling with excitement. Trixie still thinks they are the most beautiful shade of blue she’s ever seen.

“I was beginning to think you reconsidered after last time.” Katya holds the door open for Trixie to come inside.

“I was running late and realized I didn’t have your number to let you know that no, I didn’t reconsidered”. Swiftly Katya takes her phone from her apron’s pocket and gestures at Trixie to put her number in.

“Ginger is out this week so you could have rang, but I’m not sure I would have heard the doorbell”

Sure enough, as they get closer to the first floor room Trixie can pick up the vibrations of some heavy bass. Katya opens the door and a loud blast of synch pop almost deafens Trixie. But she only has a second to adjust to the music before she notices a big black piece of fabric on the floor covered completely in explosions of paint. Trixie doesn’t know much about art but she has no idea how this Pollock-esque aesthetic would match with her posing. Maybe Katya got tired of waiting for her and decided to take a 180 in her project and go modern. She stands by the door waiting for Katya to give her any instructions but she is already on the floor kneeling before her work adding some touches of yellow to the corners of it.

“Okay, so I was going over the piece from last time and realized I needed to see the color and not just add it afterwards” she explains scrubbing her hands with a towel as she gets up. Trixie nods and tries to make a face that can hide her confusion. She always feels like an idiot talking to Katya, trying to keep up with her train of thoughts and acting like she has any idea what’s going on.

“So if you don’t mind I was thinking of having you lay on top of the paint today.” Suddenly Trixie is very focused on what Katya is saying, and looks over the canvas once more, the paint dripping from it and staining the floor.

“Usually I would apologize about getting paint on your clothes but we won’t have that problem” Katya laughs.

For a moment Trixie thinks this is some sort of punishment for being late, like when her teachers would make her repeat the hardest part of a choreography when she was young and she would mess up. Katya is unbothered, clearly having decided that Trixie would be okay with this. She strips down quickly and makes eye contact with Katya when she is completely naked, still waiting to be directed. Katya seems to always take a moment before instructing her and for that fragment of a second, Trixie feels raw.

“Lay down on your side and extend your right arm as long as you can” Katya says softly. She is focused, Trixie can sense that, and for the first time she can pick up a bit of an accent, east coaster for sure: another foreigner in sunny LA just like her.

The moment her thighs touch the paint Trixie can feel its wetness, how cold and sticky it is. Her hair still falls on her chest, but her arms and legs are covered in deep tones of blue in an instant. The position itself is not uncomfortable, but there is a weirdness to laying on top of some colored textile. Katya looks up from her canvas a few times with her face slightly frowned and Trixie feels that wave of insecurity hit her again. Katya puts her brush between her lips and crawls over to Trixie with a palette in hand, unworried about her dress getting more paint over it, or about messing up the pattern she had created. She looks at Trixie like she is asking for permission, and then draws the brush all the way from Trixie’s hip to her ankles. Trixie can’t suppress a shiver. At some point she stopped hearing the music and even the strong hits of the guitar are lost in the sound of brush against skin. There’s no way to describe the process other than intimate, Katya using her body as a new canvas, splashing paint all over it, covering her stomach in smears, using her hands to trace over Trixie’s neck and painting it purple.

“What happened to just black and white sketches?” Trixie asks when fifteen minutes have passed and the novelty of having paint dripping off her has worn off. Katya looks surprised, like she had forgotten for a moment Trixie was a living person who could talk and not some doll in front of her.

“Like I’ve said, it lacked color and I couldn’t figure out how to add it. Sometimes when you look at black and white and grey too often, you forget how color works.” She doesn’t sound angry at Trixie’s question. So she presses on.

“And will this be the new direction we are going in now? This Burning Man technicolor extravaganza?”

Katya smiles and scrunches her nose, like she is trying to keep the smile from spreading wider. “No, we are going for Blue Man realness next time, bald cap included”

Trixie laughs and the noise echoes in the empty studio, the music long gone after Katya’s phone had died down. She waits before asking something else again, wishing Katya would keep the conversation going. Instead she focuses back on her work, dipping in different shades of red that look exactly the same to Trixie from where she is. Where there was intimacy a few minutes ago there is distance now, and Trixie reminds herself she is not there to get to know the painter anyways, even as she realizes that’s something she would very much like. After a while she goes back to memorizing the flowers on the drapes and thinks of a song her mum used to sing about a house with no curtains, the heartache left for all the world to see.

 

\----------------------

When Trixie gets home she is grateful for this day to be over. She loves dancing and acting but for once she is glad she doesn’t have either rehearsal or classes lined up this Friday. The show they are putting up is still on the pre production stage, so there’s no point hanging around aimlessly just to be told to go home after two hours. She is looking forward to staying in and watching some TV, catching up on some rest before she has to pull two back to back shifts the next day.

Her prospects of a quiet night in get thrown in the trash when she gets a call from Trannika, visibly drunk already and giving her crap for canceling on her. It takes almost twenty minutes of reasoning and apologies to get her to drop the subject, and instead her friend turns to insisting she comes hang out with them.

“The whole hang is here Tri-xieeeee” Trannika says on the other end of the line, her Floridian accent coming in full force enhanced by the multiple shots of Fireball whisky she must have downed already.

“Well, give them my love and tell them I’ll make it the next time.” Trixie is not even paying attention to the conversation anymore, struggling to wipe off the traces of paint that still color her skin. She had taken a shower but Katya’s assurance that the stains would come completely off proved to be wrong.

“Shea’s got a new girl who knows someone putting up a cool act. At least come and network, God knows that’s the only thing you care about these days”. The line goes off and Trixie feels guilty for pretty much ghosting her friends the last few months in favor of her work. She feels even worse because the idea of meeting someone who could get her in a play excites her, and she knows she should just be happy for Shea and not thinking of a way to turn this to her advantage.

That’s how she finds herself squashed between two leather covered guys eyeing her baby blue cowboy boots with judgement. She waves at Shea who is standing by the door and lets her in, the bar packed with people dancing to some girl’s singing. She is stunning and really tall, but her voice seems really off key. Trixie smirks knowing she can do better than that, and at least her songs don’t mention wigs and nails. The crowd seems to go crazy for the blonde thin girl, and Trixie envies her for having the courage to play for them.

She feels out of place, her hair still a little damp from her second shower and not feeling her outfit. It’s been a while since she slipped into one of her lingerie-inspired pink dresses, and in the light of the bar it seems childish, everyone else pulling off much edgier looks.

Shea introduces her to her date, a beautiful bald girl with pointed features who instantly compliments Trixie’s make up. She has found that most art people always have great feedback on her style, and wonders why Katya never mentioned it the two times they met, or at least the first time when she didn’t look busted. Then again, Katya’s idea of make up seems to be heavy black shadow smeared around her eyes at 11 in the morning, so Trixie is not sure what her views on this bubblegum fantasy would be. She rarely gets to wear it if she is acting, and she wills herself to some day be on a stage again being 100% her, and not some diluted version of Trixie Mattel that pleases her directors.

As they make their way over to the bar and they hear Trannika introduce the next girl on stage -a rocker chick who can at least definitely sing-, Trixie has to wave at the bartender to give them their drinks. She is always tasked to do so, being one of the tallest ones in their group - another reminder that she would never be the perfect ballerina.

When she spins around, trying to keep the balance of carrying four drinks, she stumbles upon someone walking opposite her and spills an entire gin tonic on her.

“For someone who knows how to move their body around, you’re certainly always crashing into me” the girl laughs, looking at her ruined black blouse and smirking.

“What are you doing here?” Trixie blurts out, surprised by seeing Katya standing in front of her, not even bothering to say she is sorry. She is going to think Trixie has the worst manners, but doesn’t seem that affected by it.

Katya nods to the stage and says “Hello to you too Tracy. That’s my friend Adore over there. I would rather be listening to Tangerine Dream like we did this morning, but she rocks too.”

And sure enough, as she wraps her song and applause pour over, Katya puts her hands around her mouth and cheers at the singer. Shea and Sasha come over and grab the drinks off of Trixie’s hands, who still hasn’t said anything and is just frozen in her place looking at Katya. Her dark makeup is paired with a strong red lip this time, and her hair is straight and shinny instead of tussled. She looks beautiful but older, and Trixie realizes she still has no idea who Katya really is.

Trannika is getting the crowd excited and cracking jokes, calling out on some guy on his cellphone who looks bored. Trixie’s hands are getting cold and numb around her glass and she wants to get back to their table and for some reason, to get away from Katya. It’s not until she has a spotlight on her face that she realizes people are staring at her, and her friend is loudly telling the story about the time they’d met, Trixie dragging a silly pink bag all the way from Wisconsin to Chicago where they used to perform.

“And look at her now. The most promising dancer with clown make up I’ve ever seen. She even surrounds herself with the most attractive people in town to look crazier next to them, bless her heart”. Oh lord. Trannika’s manager is going to give her crap for slurring into the microphone instead of getting people dancing.

“And who would you be, gorgeous?”. Trixie follows Trannika’s eyes and sees people turning to look at Katya. She starts to feel sweaty and her eyes go blurry and curses, recognizing the feeling.

“I would be the one responsible for this” Katya laughs, clearly delighted by the situation, and reaches to trace a purple stain on Trixie’s neck with her fingers. The touch feels electrifying but Trixie doesn’t dwell on that, instead feeling a sick twist in her stomach and getting dizzy. She doesn’t hear Trannika’s next witty remark because the second Katya’s hand leave her skin she is bolting for the door, collapsing on the sidewalk and puking her guts out.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let me ask you a question: do you wear a tutu and slippers?” Katya stops walking and looks directly at her.
> 
> “yeah… what does that have to do with anything?”
> 
> “Sounds like a ballerina to me, _Semenyaka_ ”. Trixie guesses Katya knows more about dancing than what meets the eye, and she wishes she had some painter references to counterpoint her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all that commented here or sent me asks on tumblr! I promise to do my best to update more often, but seeing as I took a much needed vacation this past month, scheduling this new chapter got a little hard.
> 
> Special thanks as usual to Becca @thesemovingparts, the alyssa to my dumb trixie, for steering my dancer knowledge in the right direction. This is a bit shorter than the first chapter but I promise more interesting stuff is coming along. 
> 
> Come say hi over at tumblr.com/cactus-and-a-lily and let me know what you think there or in the comments here

Trixie wakes up two hours before her alarm rings, a rare occasion. Even for a trained dancer who always shows up half an hour earlier to any place, Trixie is known to sleep right until her phone starts playing some cheerful music that briefly puts her in a bad mood each morning. She had tried to overtire herself the last couple of days, throwing herself into more practice, showing up at Alyssa’s studio and demanding Jay they went over the parts in the choreography that gave her trouble, and even attempted to fall dramatically on the floor like he did to humor him after helping her out. She had taken an extra shift at the restaurant and managed to dodge most of her friends’ phone calls. 

It had been less than a week since she had bailed on all of them and rushed home feeling dizzy. Kim had been asleep so Trixie had tried to be as quiet as possible and just crawled into bed and forced the room to stop spinning, the too familiar feeling of an empty stomach and a light-head coming back to her. As if she knew something was up -like she usually did- Kim had casually made breakfast for both of them the next morning and sat there with Trixie until she finished eating, or -as Trixie winced to think-, until she made sure Trixie ate all of it.

Trixie’s habit of ghosting people when she was distressed was as destructive as it sound, but the moment more than three messages went unread, the overwhelming anxiety consumed her and she couldn’t even glance at her phone. It had always been like that and more than once she had missed good auditions because picking up her phone seemed like the most terrifying task imaginable. Last night she had dragged her laptop from the bottom of her bag just to watch some Balanchine productions, which always intimidated her but occupied her mind, just so she could avoid the little red bubbles on top of her messages. She realized two hours after it was sent that she had gotten an email from Katya. Apparently all she had to say was condensed into three lines; she had detailed the schedule for their meetings that week and closed with a “hope you are feeling better” at the end of it. Trixie wondered if maybe Katya had texted her and her message had gotten lost in the mess that was her phone, but scrolling through the pilling group chats and conversations -most from her worried friends-, she failed to find a anything. For some reason that made her sad and then instantly felt stupid because she knew she wasn’t supposed to expect anything from Katya. Absentmindedly Trixie brought her hand to her neck and felt the hairs near her ear stand up, almost as if Katya’s hand was there again.

“Good Lord Trixie, get a fucking grip” she had called out and heard her voice echo in her small room.  
She responded quick and briefly and set a reminder for next Wednesday at 10, realizing just now that almost a week had gone by between their last meeting and this. Trixie wondered if Katya had chosen to give her space or if she had finally realized Trixie was not a suitable model for her kind of art and decided to mull over that thought for a few days. Or maybe Katya had a life of her own and she couldn’t make time. 

So this morning, having given up on catching some sleep and just waiting there in bed until her alarm rang, Trixie goes back to that thought, about Katya and her life. They had known each other for little over two weeks and Trixie still had no clue what she did or who she was. She had noticed Katya’s funky outfits and clumsy way of moving, and had those blue eyes very much present in her mind, but she hadn’t really taken an interest in who Katya was as a person, rather than just the woman painting her while she stood still butt naked. Maybe it was easier to go through it without thinking the person behind the easel was, well, actually a person. She remembers Katya saying something about knowing one of the girls performing at Coscoe’s, but last Friday night seems like it was clouded by a fog that distorted everything. Katya may as well have told her she was there as a spy for a rival club and Trixie would have remembered none of it either. She does wonder if in some part of town, in another bed, Katya is also riddled with anxiety about showing up at the studio today. Or maybe, most probably, it’s just Trixie.

——————————

When she gets to the studio she is practically sweating. She looks around the block three times before deciding that she doesn’t have the courage to call Katya. For some reason Katya opted out of texting her the other day, and Trixie still feels weird for rushing out without and explanation. Talk about a good first impression. Well, a second or third one. But a crappy first impression outside the spacious studio they shared their time in. She rings the doorbell instead, hoping Katya wouldn’t read too much into this change of action. How an easy job that payed decent money ended up being another factor to stress over in her life, Trixie has no idea, but she does’t like the feeling in her stomach she gets each morning while changing before coming here. Less than a minute after she rang twice, an annoyed voice calls from inside and briskly opens the door. 

“Didn’t Katya tell you not to ring?” An annoyed short woman glares at her. Trixie is frozen on the sidewalk, wondering if she got the right building or the wrong time. She was so used to Katya and herself being alone there, she completely forgot the space supposedly belongs to someone else.

“She did” Trixie tries to sound sharp and offended, but comes of as a bit shy and apologetic. Talk about four years of drama school down the drain.

“Wow, then you’re a fast learner I see. Come on, she is already fuzzing over her pencils and lighting.” She turns around when Trixie follows her upstairs and adds “and I think she was worried you weren’t gonna show up for some reason. I’ve never seen her get here half an hour early and check her phone so many times”.

Trixie shallows hard and for the first time in over a week she feels something resembling regret and remembers Katya’s confused face when she pulled away from her touch at the club. When the short woman opens the door, Katya is by the window and is in fact organizing 5 different black pencils, although it looks like she is just moving them around. Her easel is nowhere to be found. She looks up at Trixie and her smile reaches her eyes but there’s still something polite and collected, very unlike her. Not that Trixie would know what is usual for Katya, but she has a hard time picturing her as a held back person. 

“Okay, I don’t have all day. Where do I sit?” The short woman’s voice travels and Trixie turns her head at her. She is staring irritatedly at Katya who looks like she was about to say something to Trixie. 

“Over here will be fine Ginger” she sighs and points at a chair not far from where she is sitting, and diagonally from where Trixie usually stands. Is she gonna stay there for their session? Is she evaluating Katya or something? Trixie wants to ask but before she can bring it up, Katya looks up from where she already started sketching and says “You get to keep your clothes on today Tallulah”. 

Trixie stands there awkwardly and leans into the high chair Katya always leaves in the center, and tries not to look into Ginger’s eyes. She seems annoyed and bored to be there, and her sole purpose seems to be to look at Trixie while Katya draws her. Trixie is grateful to be spared from stripping in front of yet another stranger -although at this point it doesn’t feel like Katya is someone she doesn’t know- but she feels even more naked than when Katya has her sit down and raise her arms over her head, her boobs in full display. It’s like being judged when she had to hold the perfect relevé at college and her teacher would pick on her posture. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on something else. She grasps the corners of the chair and is sure her knuckles have gone white, and when she opens her eyes Katya is looking intensely at her. Trixie tries to block anything out except her eyes, and wonders if she always looks at her like that but hides behind her big canvas. Katya can’t look away to pick up different colors from her pallet this time, so she brings her pencil to her mouth and inhales deep. Whatever Katya is going through is not much different than what Trixie feels. Trixie turns and tries to convince herself the emotion showing in Katya’s eyes was a trick of the light, only to be reminded that Ginger is still sitting there with her arms crossed. 

“So you are the owner of this?” Trixie asks just so she has something to do -anything- but look into Katya’s eyes again. She knows she can’t fully turn her head now that the sketch is in process, so she speaks up to the room hoping Ginger would humor her. 

“Technically. Being the owner would have its perks you’d think, like being able to paint without being asked by one of your tenants to sit around for an hour and waste your time. But you asked if I owned this. Yes I do.” From the corner of her eyes she sees Ginger face Katya. “Can I talk to your doll or do I have to give in to your weird silence?”. Katya shuffles in her seat. When Ginger gets no answer she turns to Trixie and adds “I’ve never seen her so quiet. It was always my dream for her to shut up but it’s more bizarre than I would have expected”.

Trixie laughs as Katya shots Ginger an angry look but remains quiet, just like she is in most of their sessions. Trixie wishes for some conversation, something that would make her feel less observed and analyzed. She can tell Ginger doesn’t care about her, but she is still there, looking at her, judging her, being forced to look at her. Trixie tries to go over her tap routine in her mind solely to have something else to think about, and yet she still feels like fainting just like she did when her mum took her to her first ballet recital as a kid.

“Okay, that’s it. You can go” Katya’s voice sounds tired and on the edge, and she runs a hand through her face smudging some black over her temples. Trixie starts moving but Katya turns the paper and sets it aside before getting up to approach her. “Not you. I meant Ginger. I was wondering if we could talk a bit”  
Trixie nods but wants to run to the door like she did when she felt the lights of the club on her. She tells herself she can not do this again and smiles at Ginger who looks relieved to be left off the hook.

“I owe you one” Katya says softly as Ginger is leaving, and takes a sit with her legs crossed on the floor. Trixie notices her skirt riding up to her calfs and her combat boots showing. She feels weird standing over there, and looking at Katya from above, and suddenly her nerves shift to anger. Yes, she vanished after running into Katya at the club, but she doesn’t owe anything to her. She has her own stuff to worry about, time to devote to rehearsals and real friends to apologize to. And since when did Katya think that it was okay to change the dynamics of their sessions without checking with her? She realizes she is seething and her nostrils are flaring up, and yet Katya is not even looking at her or registering any of this. She is picking at a crack on the wooden floor. She gets up and walks to the window behind her and opens it up, grabbing a pack of cigarettes from the pockets in her skirt. She lights one up and looks at Trixie offering her one. 

“What do you want to talk about?” Trixie asks after shaking her head and watching Katya blow smoke out to street. She knows she sounds snappy and she is glad. Today and the whole week had been bullshit, and all she wants is to head home and put it all behind. Perhaps Ginger was right and she shouldn’t have shown up in the first place.

“I want to say I’m sorry” Katya looks down at the ashes gathering at the tip of her cigarette. She flicks them off and takes a drag before tossing it. “I realized half way through that maybe subjecting you to today’s dynamic wasn’t the most fair thing to do”

Now all of Trixie’s anger vanishes as she can see Katya punishing herself for today, and wants to reassure her that it was okay, even if it wasn’t. 

“I liked your face the other day. You know… before running out. It was vulnerable. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I just wished I could've capture it again today”. Usually Trixie hates when people call out any form of weakness in her. And when they do, they use all kind of words to go around calling her fragile. With Katya it seems to be different. Not only on how she phrases it, but how Trixie responds to it.

“Well, did you?” She asks.

“No. You were looking angry and annoyed. It was nice, you ended up looking like a bitch. I love that”, Katya smiles. Trixie laughs at this because she has been told before that whereas some people have a resting bitch face she has -well, a face that makes her look like a bitch who’s ready to roll her eyes at you.

“Can I see it?”. Trixie speaks without thinking and she regrets it instantly. She knows there’s a reason Katya keeps her work from her, and by the look on her face as she puts out the second cigarette on the edge of the window, Trixie knows that she crossed the line. Katya wraps her arms around her waist and checks her phone. “Maybe some other time.” She walks pass Trixie and starts putting her stuff away.

Trixie usually gets dressed while Katya closes up, so the silence that falls between them is mostly comfortable. Now, standing there while Katya is gathering the brushes she didn’t use and turning off the switches scattered around the room, Trixie feels the need to fill the time with any type of babbling. She has a thousand things she wants to ask Katya and that have crossed through her mind this week, but after she just shut her out, she feels like any subject is walking on thin ice.

“So what were you doing on the club the other night?”, Trixie settles for the most basic small talk.

“My friend Adore was performing”, Katya says finishing clearing up the space. 

Oh. Right. Trixie knew that.

“I don’t do the club scene anymore, but it was a nice trip down memory lane. Adore and I go way back, from when I used to follow her band around and do collages of them for our little underground magazine”

Fuck. So Katya was like a legit artist. Trixie had put her in the amateur artist box and somehow the realization makes her feel oddly proud and intimidated.  
“So the not wanting to show your work is a recent thing then?”

Katya smiles but stops midway, her mouth forming a perfect O. She looks frozen for a moment but then starts wheezing (Trixie can’t even catalog that as a laugh) and moving her arms around, punching Trixie in the arm as she takes her backpack and throws it over her shoulder. 

“It is. I like to take my time with it now that I don’t have a crazy schedule of commissions to get through. It would kill me to put out something that’s not finished, or that doesn’t seem like its done. I did a lot of running around for other people’s sake and that messed with me. I don’t do that anymore.”

Trixie can perfectly understand her but fears that by saying so Katya would not believe her. Half of the time she feels like the joy from performing has been stripped away from her, but she always thought nobody would get that, seeing as she kept showing up to every audition she could get her hands on. So she just nods and climbs the stairs next to Katya, their sides brushing together as she turns her head to watch her speak. She talks with her face and her hands as much as with her mouth, Trixie realizes, and even if she stumbles on one step or two, she can’t look away.

“it’s what’s happening with your paintings. I have them scattered on my living room and I keep fixing stuff. It’s driving me more insane than usual”, Katya adds.

“Wow, a crazy painter. Refreshing.” Trixie tries to deliver the line with a straight face as they get to the door, but ends up biting the inside of her cheek to keep herself from smiling

“Certainly not as unusual as a ballerina with stage fright” Katya squints her eyes and looks at her. Trixie can sense it, the beat in where she is waiting to see how Trixie will react. It feels like Katya is testing her again, just like with Ginger in the studio, but not to force her or conjure a reaction this time. 

“Fuck you” Trixie laughs and she can almost feel Katya letting out some air. “And I’m not a ballerina. I’m a dancer”

“And what’s the difference?” For the first time, they are walking towards the same direction. Or maybe Katya is just following Trixie along, who suddenly has no rush to get to her place.

“For some people, none. Others relate ballerina with ballet. And I do ballet, is just that I do so much more.” Trixie tries to explain.

“Like baton twirling while explaining quantum physics?” Katya laughs at her own joke before Trixie can respond.

“No. Like taking photos of singers and collaging them with super glue.” Now is Trixie’s turn to be smug. She has forgotten why she was angry at Katya or why she felt weird about showing up today.

Katya lights up again and Trixie decides she likes making her laugh. It’s been a while since she had hanged out with someone who made her feel like they truly enjoyed her company, and she welcomes the change like a rush of adrenaline.

“Like tap dancing, and jazz and interpretative dance”, Trixie finally offers.

“Let me ask you a question: do you wear a tutu and slippers?” Katya stops walking and looks directly at her.

“yeah… what does that have to do with anything?”

“Sounds like a ballerina to me, _Semenyaka_ ”. Trixie guesses Katya knows more about dancing than what meets the eye, and she wishes she had some painter references to counterpoint her.

Around them people are rushing in their lunch break and some girls in uniforms say their goodbyes after a day at school. Reluctantly Trixie checks her phone and sighs at the thought of another endless shift at the restaurant. Katya keeps standing there looking at her, like she has all the time in the world to spare. Trixie realizes life doesn’t stop for her to mindlessly strut around LA with a deluded artist, so she hugs Katya and promises to make it on time on Monday. 

“We are back to nude illusions next week, so stretch accordingly or whatever”, Katya reminds her, pulling out a map from her backpack. Trixie is tempted to make a remark about her being the last person in the US to still use one of those, but she fears she may get suck into another one of Katya’s elaborated responses and lose track of time again. 

“Oh honey, it’s always people’s illusion when I’m naked”. Trixie laughs again and goes her way, trying very hard to not turn and look at Katya as she walks, and failing miserably. 

 

————————

“You’ve got someone waiting for you on table 5.” Pearl as usual sounds too bothered to be here, even if she snaps when people point that out. Trixie knows better and has learnt not to question her reasons for working at a restaurant having a good thriving model career that could pay her bills. She takes her notepad and grabs a pen from the counter, not bothering to ask follow up questions she knows Pearl won’t answer, and watches her lean in her chair, already back to scrolling through her phone.

Trixie makes her way to the tables around the small place, feeling as she usually does like time doesn’t move fast enough here. She certainly is paying her dues to afford living in a busy city like LA.

“Well, top of the morning to you slut. I was starting to wonder if you had packed up and strapped on that silly fanny pack of yours and moved away”

Trixie stands there as she sees her friend smiling contrivedly at her, knowing well that behind Trannika’s rosary of insults, there are always good intentions hidden. Sometimes really well hidden, but still there.

“And lose this amazing job and all the great people I get to meet here? never” Trixie says in the most saccharine tone she can muster up. She taps her fingers on the table, dreading what’s to come. After her friend just stares at her for another 30 seconds she gets impatient. “So, are you gonna order something or did you just come here to belittle me for the money I caused you on Tuesday?”

Trannika rolls her eyes and dismissed her comment with a flicker of her hand. “The new girl filled the spot with some decent rock music that hyped people up more than your arm choreography ever could if you would have accepted. Now, if you had graced us with some of those soulful James Taylor-like tunes of yours, it would be another thing…”

Trixie turns around and is determined to make her way back to the counter when Trannika calls out to her in a loud voice.

“Miss, I’m just taking my time with this great menu, can you take my order or should I take my business elsewhere?”. Trixie can feel her manager’s eyes on her and turns around and puts a smile on.

“So your plan is to get me fired?”. So much for a nice Thursday morning. All the excitement from her talk with Katya seems to have died down, and she is back to dealing with people that give her a headache.

“No. I wanted to check on you. It’s been a while since I saw you pull out a stunt like Friday’s.” Trannika looks close to sincere now. Trixie is sure she’ll take another dig at her soon, because her friend doesn’t know how to convey true emotion for more than two minutes. She appreciates her concern, but wishes more than anything than people would let her put all her wrong doings behind her and treat her like a child.

“I’m fine. It was a stressful week and I snapped.” Trannika rolls her eyes again -so, less than two minutes this time- like she can tell Trixie is downplaying the whole situation. “Really. You know it has nothing to do with you or anyone else.”

“I was plastered. Sorry for putting the spotlight on you, I know how you hate that” Trannika offers as she looks down on the table. The reason Trixie likes her so much is because behind all of her cocky façade, she is one of the most considerate people ever. It makes her look adorable, but Trixie knows she would get an offended comment from her if she ever brought it up.

“Apology accepted. Next time just make a silly remark about some bachelorette at the audience and let me sip my drink in peace”

“I'll do my best.” As Trixie smiles to her and starts to turn around to leave, Trannika rushes to get her words out. “That’s not the only reason I came here. Some scouter went over old footage from the club and asked me to give you this”. She hands her a small card and Trixie can feel her heart racing again. She has to remind herself that she is working and can’t just rush out.

“I told you to take that down.” She says but keeps her arms folded.

“Hey, for once is not my fault. You’ll have to fight with Dida over it, is one of the most viewed videos on our channel and you know how she loves some good publicity.”

Trixie sees the place filling up and takes it as her chance to have an actual excuse to bail from this conversation. She knows where this is going and she knows how it’s going to end; she knows it, Trannika knows it, anyone who knows her does. She can tell her friends mean well, but that doesn’t mean her answer is going to change. So what is the point of pushing forward and getting the same response? She wishes people would stop being so … _encouraging_ , and just accept that as a chapter closed in her life.

After a while she sees Trannika wave at her as she leaves, and Trixie eyes the sandwich sitting on top of the counter waiting for her break. She pours herself an iced coffee and heads out, grabbing her phone to try and go over the new parts in her routine that Ben had sent over, her appetite suddenly lost. On the way outside she breaks the card in her pocket in two and tosses it out on the garbage.

———————-

“Places, people, places”. Trixie closes her eyes and counts to five. “I want to get a word in before we start: I’n not your mother, or your girlfriend or your counselor. If you can’t make it to practice, my phone is not the one you call. If your agent is pissed about you not getting casted as you wanted, is not my issue to resolve. If your train got delayed and you forgot your clothes at home, is not my problem what you wear. Jesus people, I feel like I’m repeating myself since the beginning of the year”. Trixie would be bothered by Ms. Vissage’s rant if it was a novelty, but after months of hearing her snap and then come to their assistance moments after like a dutiful mum, her words tend to lose impact. She finishes tying up her hair in a pony tail and finds Yara’s retelling of her last hookup much more interesting than her director’s ramble that resembles white noise so early in the morning.

“That being said, due to scheduling conflicts, we are going to switch things up a bit”. Trixie is already standing in the third row, not so further in the back that she can’t listen to the directions, and not so much in the front that everyone can see her inevitably fuck up. “Violet is touring for the next three weeks so we are gonna need a new doll-obsessed prima donna.” Trixie can feel the silence before she hears it. Every girl in the room is holding her breath and all Trixie wonders is if this would mess up their partners’ routine.

“So there’s of course one clear answer. Ms. Mattel, I trust you can live up to the task. Okay, we are taking it from act 3 today”. When Trixie looks up she can see her director’s impatient stare and she steps forward, going over all she knows about Swanhilda in her mind. Snippets of Alyssa’s energetic choreography and Ben’s stage directions filter through, and she shakes her head trying to put her thoughts in order. Maybe she is a ballerina after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't encourage any of you to check out Natalia Osipova's performance of Coppelia if you don't want to get suck in by an amazing Bolshoi Ballet rendition of this doll-obsessed fantasy


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Trixie has an idea but stops mid-sentence. Her fingers curl into a fist and she looks away, but her curiosity at seeing Katya sway to some melodic music eventually gets the best of her. She leaves Katya sitting cross-legged on the floor and goes to her room as she hears her high voice call out “are you gonna bring me your tap shoes to further humiliate me?” from the living room. Trixie pushes some bags filled with costumes aside and retrieves her guitar from her closet, and stands by the table with a pick in her mouth, Katya looking puzzled. She plays the only thing that comes to mind, and can see the sparkle in Katya’s eyes as she recognizes the first chords to the song Trixie was humming a few days ago while getting dressed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone that either sent me messages on tumblr or commented! I'm excited to kick things in action as the story progresses and to dive in both Katya's and Trixie's particular fears and sometimes obliviousness.
> 
> As usual, none of my dancing mentions would sound coherent without Becca @thesemovingparts, the reason I get lost in Bolshoi performances on a Friday night. And a shoutout to Bea @ladyalix for being the core inspiration for Katya's way of texting
> 
> Come say hi over at tumblr.com/cactus-and-a-lily and let me know what you think there or in the comments here

Trixie is painting her toe nails in her room, Thelma Plum’s voice coming off her computer. She scans through her Instagram stories and sees most of her friends are out and enjoying the last summer nights in LA, just like she used to do when she moved here three years ago. Most of these days she just stays in and refreshes the tab on her bank account, falling asleep before 10 pm with her laptop still on and occasionally icing her sore muscles. She had been deep in Coppelia’s performances since her eventful rehearsal on Tuesday and bans herself from even opening Youtube today or else she would lose her mind. She tries very hard to forget about Violet’s graceful movements and the intensity in her face as Swanhilda sets the plan in motion to win back the affection of her love; Trixie knows she will never achieve that passion in her performance, and after some minutes of staring at her mirror trying to get that, she just gives up.

With Kim away working on a wedding Trixie relishes in having the apartment all for herself. She didn’t even bother coming up with a lie that would make her sound cool when the new girl working at the cafe asked her what her plans for Friday were. She liked Aja, and she reminded her a little bit of herself when she was younger: full of energy, jokes and creativity, and mostly hope. Trixie is 27 but most of the times she feels 50 in LA, specially when she hangs out with younger people. She knows the window to make it in the city is closing up on her, and she gets at least 5 emails a week looking for girls younger than 25 to perform. Most of the people that audition with her didn’t have to save money 3 years after high school to go to college like she did, so she always knew she had some catching up to. She just didn’t know exactly how much. Seeing everyone around you doing amazing when you are barely pulling through is not a great feeling, but she vows herself to not get bitter as more and more people she knows are succeeding and she is falling behind. 

She looks around her room and makes a quick assessment of all she has achieved; is a worthless effort to cheer herself up, but feeling at home and present always helps her ground herself. She knows she has come a long way from dance and guitar lessons back in Wisconsin and she likes to remind herself of it, and of all the things she was able to overcome. Besides some jokes thrown around, she rarely pats herself on the back for working through it, so scared that the moment she would relax and think it was all over, all her old demons could come bitting her in the ass. Whenever she goes home she feels like the star of the town with a few dance credits to her name, but she also knows that a future of teaching ballet to kids is ahead of her if she doesn’t land a big break soon. It doesn’t help that her mum keeps forwarding her work offers as a secretary in Milwaukee, and that half of the girls that went to high school with her are either posting engagement announcements on their Facebooks or uploading pictures of their newborn babies. Even her college friend Max is doing amazing things, headlining a theatre tour around the country, so Trixie can’t entirely blame her roots for her failures. Even getting the leading role in their new production seems tainted, and every time that she had to do her solo this week the feeling that she only got it because Violet opted out looms over her head. Second best, that would always seem to be her place, an asterisk next to every one of her achievements. 

She was too tired to hit the gym and had spent her entire shift at the restaurant texting back and forth with Katya. It was weird how easily they had fallen into a seemingly never ending conversation during the days they didn’t see each other. Well, if you could call it a conversation. Usually Trixie would try to ask Katya something and ended up receiving a string of weird memes or off topic responses. So Trixie had started doing it too, and sometimes each of their messages seemed like the isolated train of thoughts of a derailed person. It was a string of inner monologue babbling nonsense, and it felt more cathartic than any of the therapy sessions Trixie had been the subject of in her whole life. She liked it; usually when her phone buzzed she got anxious about having to answer or face one of her friends’ questions, but whenever she saw Katya’s name her body relaxed.

Trixie had told Katya a couple days ago that she needed to move their upcoming appointment to 10 am instead of 11 and after five hours of radio silence Katya had just sent a video of a tree with water flooding out of it and wrote _“the tree is peeing. It’s peeing Trixie, and it does so once a year !!!”_. Before Trixie could answer she had gotten a link to a retelling of the Salem Witch Trials with a _“persecution of women makes my heart break and my blood boil and the fact that pretty much nothing has changed is a testament to the dystopian times we live in”_. Only after another two hours had Katya remembered to give her the okay on the time change and had ghosted her for four more hours. When they saw each other, however, Katya always seemed to be focused only on her paintings and her set up and just let Trixie ramble on about her day throwing an occasional comment to indicate she was listening. Trixie half hoped she would bring up the tree or the Salem witches or whatever, but as usual she had to settle for Katya humming in agreement as she traced Trixie’s body both with her brushes and her eyes.

The music in her computer has died down and her phone rings again and she picks it up expecting it to be Kim chastising her for not eating in the whole day -joke’s on Kim, she had half a box of saltines three hours ago- but before answering she sees that it’s Katya. She feels weird about having been thinking about her and she tries to sound as unaffected as possible when she answers.

“On a scale from 3 to 12 how likely do you think it is that you landed that role because you walk around literally painted like a doll?” Katya sounds amused and curious, and Trixie wonders if she stumbled on a different dimension, one where Katya not only calls her regularly but picks up the conversation exactly where they left it the day before.

Trixie had vented to her about her fears and expectations while standing by the window, Katya obsessed with the light that was coming through it. Trixie had been anxious about flashing her bare ass to anyone peaking through the window from the street, so she had monologued the whole afternoon about her new role to keep her mind busy. It had been surprisingly easy to talk to Katya because unlike Kim who started jumping around and instantly researching every aesthetical aspect of the play, pointing out details that only made Trixie more anxious, or her mum who had asked if this meant she got to tour and make more money, Katya was happy but not overexcited; she had congratulated Trixie but told her to get rid of her shirt in the same breath. But some of what Trixie had explained about the plot of the play must have registered with her.

“3 to 12? What kind of scale is that?”, Trixie laughs and tells herself this doesn’t have to be any different from their text exchanges or the small talk they share when Katya still awkwardly turns while Trixie gets changed. She is fully aware that Katya’s voice has never seem so close as it is now, breathing right next to her ear.

“Well, who died and decided that 0 to 10 was our go to?” Trixie can almost see Katya smirk, just like she does when she feels proud about a point she made or when she shuts down one of Trixie’s complaints.

“the Indian and Arabs. Big proponents of the Brahmi numerals system for all things practical”, Trixie says without missing a beat.

“Ohhh, look who has brains on top of looks” Katya teases her. Trixie catches a glance of herself in her vanity mirror opposing her bed, and rolls her eyes. She must be really attention starved for an off-compliment like that to make her blush. 

“I have no idea” Trixie prefers to answer the question before Katya goes on a tangent about some old abacus she had or something. “I told you I was the default understudy in every play I’ve done since I was 13, so I’m not counting on this one sticking until opening night. If anything I’m a glorified placeholder for Violet” Trixie lays on her back on her bed, glad she finally said that out loud. That thought is exactly the kind of self-harming one she knows she shouldn’t have, but it’s nice to share it without getting suspicious stares. She has no idea where Katya is, but judging by the lack of background noise she can picture her on her house, discarded sketch paper around her, an ashtray full of cigarettes and ink stains on her couch. 

“I think you are going to knock it out of the park and make that man regret ditching you and obsessing over a doll. I’ve looked it up, it has a very “Lars and the Real Girl” meets telenovela plot-line, I’m obsessed.”

Trixie hears her own laugh echo in the empty apartment and then the silence that follows. She doesn’t know what to say, but she knows she wants to keep the conversation going, doesn’t want to go back to her uneventful Friday night so quickly. She finds herself looking forward to their sessions more and more each day, and she is stubbornly determined to befriend Katya. She feels like a pathetic freshman trying to impress the cool senior every time she shows up at the studio, and the more closed off Katya seems, the more Trixie is intrigued by her. 

She waits to see if Katya wants to ask her something or if she going to tell her the reason why she called, but the silence is too much to handle and Trixie feels the need to fill it. “How’s the finishing touches coming along? Any chance of getting one painting done by this weekend?”

Katya sights and Trixie can picture her rubbing her eyes like she does when she walks around the studio. “It’s coming along fine. I’m getting a little tired of staring at your face each day as I walk to pour myself a glass of water to be honest, and I think I’m going insane. I’ve started talking to you”, she laughs.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah. I have most of them propped up in my living room and I’d be watching the news and saying to you -well, not you, painting you- ‘can you believe this hoard of idiots?’. You have some pretty solid opinions on how congress works”

Trixie is at a loss for words, like she usually is when it comes to Katya. She counts herself as a pretty quick witted girl, but she is caught off guard whenever Katya’s meaningless string of craziness morphs into a serious comment or an even stranger revelation. Katya seems to always blindside her; she’d be quiet and focused on her painting for ten minutes straight and then get up and show Trixie some link on her cellphone and rant about that for a while, oblivious at how naked and speechless Trixie would be.

“okay…. I don’t know how to respond to that. Do you have a sort of shrine? Are you gonna murder me next week? I’m the one that’s from the midwest bitch, don’t be coming for my gig”

Katya laughs and says nothing, which should annoy Trixie but doesn’t. She is getting used to not getting a straight answer ever from her, and if someone were to tell her Katya was unreal and just a fragment of Trixie’s imagination a la “Fight Club” style, she wouldn’t be surprised. 

“So that’s what you are doing right now? Trying to get some real conversation instead of the ones made up in your mind?”, Trixie tests her.

“Ah, my dear _Ulánova_ , just because it is in my head doesn’t mean it isn’t real” Katya laughs

“Are you quoting Harry Potter to me?”. Trixie is suddenly very aware of the foolish smile on her face, and turns to face the wall to avoid her stupid mirror. But it’s nice and it doesn’t feel like she is making an effort to keep the conversation going anymore.  
“What are you doing, for real? Just chilling?”, she asks

“Yeah, I guess. That’s what the kids are calling it this days, right?” Trixie can hear the relaxed tone in Katya’s voice, exactly like she sounds when they say goodbye by the studio door and Trixie wants to linger there. Usually when Trixie is on the phone she rushes for the conversation to be over and fidgets with her nails while talking, but speaking to Katya somehow is making her calmer, like she is right there and they are chatting away while she is painting.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t know. I’m not that on topic with the youth’s vernacular. Two teenagers called me “ma’am” on the cafe on Monday so I guess I have to sign up for a 401K now.” Katya is laughing for real now, and Trixie’s earphones fall a little off her ears as her smile widens. Her stomach makes a noise and she knows if she hangs up she will take a shower and go to sleep instead of cooking herself a proper meal, so the next words slip out of her mouth without really thinking about it.

“Do you want to come over?”. Trixie closes her eyes and pulls a pillow over her face. Where did that come from? She should be getting a good night’s sleep since she has rehearsals at Jinkx’s next morning, so what got into her?

Katya doesn’t respond and seems to be moving stuff around, and Trixie is ready to take her offer back, all the calmness and assurance gone, until Katya beats her to it with her answer. “Sure. There’s no code preventing a painter from hanging out with her muse, right?”

Trixie doesn’t need to see her reflection this time to figure out she is bright red from head to toe. Her skin feels hot to further prove this point.

“Right”, she manages.

“Okay, text me the address. We can stir you away from the Youtube rabbit hole I’m sure you are in”

Trixie hangs up and spends the next half hour tidying up just so she has something to do. It’s been a while since she had company over, and even longer since a woman was there. She thinks about texting Kim giving her a heads up, but she reasons there is really no point in making it into a bigger thing than it is. Kim is constantly urging her to go out more and meet new people, and Trixie doesn’t want her friend drawing wrong conclusions. She contemplates changing into a nicer dress, but reminds herself this is not that kind of get together. Katya is still a mystery and even if she liked girls as well it would mess things up too much. Trixie never even thought of her that way and she is not going to start right now. So her old flannel and ripped jeans would have to make do.

——————-

Here’s a list of things Trixie has found out about Katya in the last hour or so: 

1) when you get her to sit down and talk, she replicates the same pace and scatter of her text messages. Since storming into Trixie’s apartment with Chinese take out and ice-cream, she has talked about her high school in Boston where she apparently went through a goth phase -Trixie tried to get her to show her pictures but Katya clutched her phone closer to her chest and run to the balcony-, about her mum and siblings who have their houses filled with art work from her and are extremely supportive, about her favorite painters and all the museums she wants to visit around the world, and about the thousands of playlists she makes for each of their sessions. When Trixie points out that Katya has included some of her favorite bands in those, Katya looks away and writes it out as a coincidence. 

2) there’s apparently difference between high-end expensive brushes and dollar store ones, and Katya prefers the latter ones, specially since she is constantly misplacing them.

3) She quickly mentions some dark times in her life that Trixie doesn’t want to ask about, but that’s when her art peaked. Trixie knows if she could see a single one of those paintings she would understand Katya more. 

4) She wants a pet but managed to kill various plants over the last few years, something that doesn’t surprise Trixie in the least.

5) She has trouble staying focused on one thing, jumping from one explanation to the other and never fully getting to a point; all those topics were covered in a conversation that started with Trixie asking about how Katya knew Ginger.

And it turns out she really has no clue about the technical aspects of dancing.

“Why actively seek out for a dancer then?”. Trixie had died to ask her that question ever since the first day they met, and she tries to keep the edge of curiosity out of her voice as she folds a napkin in four and looks down.

“Isn’t that always the case?” Katya takes a drag of her cigarette while her body is half outside Trixie’s balcony, legs spread over her living room floor. “Don’t we look for stuff in others that we can’t achieve ourselves?”

Trixie mulls over that part but just nods. For as nice as this is she is not ready to open up to Katya, and she hates that some of the shame for the things she’s done and what she’s been looms over her, specially because she feels for some reason like Katya would understand her. It scares her even more to share it because of that reason.

It’s ironic that Katya puts her dancing down because Trixie has also learnt that she is a master at gymnastics, even if she downplayed it as a skill achieved at a very young age. Trixie stood there, noodles dangling from her chopsticks while explaining to Katya that half of the girls in her classes would kill to land a perfect split. She is not gonna add that she still kind of sucks at it because, she realizes, she wants nothing more than to impress her still.

“I’m not saying I can’t dance, I’m saying people aren’t going to pay money to see me doing that.” Katya says.

“Well, they don’t always pay to see me either, let me tell you that”.

Katya smiles at her and shakes her head, like whatever Trixie has said is endearing. “I love to put on music and fool around, Painting-You seemed impressed and even gave me compliments”

Trixie knows she should be freaked out every time Katya brings up her weird habit of talking to “Painting-Trixie” but she likes being a part of Katya’s every day life; it makes her feel like she is not just a rare appearance on Katya’s routine twice or three times a week. 

“Well, there’s only one way to figure it out. Put that heavy Russian rock you played the other day and see what you’ve got bitch” Trixie laughs. 

“No, no. I can’t dance to that. My artful expression has to be to some equally thought evoking tunes” Katya concedes. 

Trixie has an idea but stops mid-sentence. Her fingers curl into a fist and she looks away, but her curiosity at seeing Katya sway to some melodic music eventually gets the best of her. She leaves Katya sitting cross-legged on the floor and goes to her room as she hears her high voice call out “are you gonna bring me your tap shoes to further humiliate me?” from the living room. Trixie pushes some bags filled with costumes aside and retrieves her guitar from her closet, and stands by the table with a pick in her mouth, Katya looking puzzled. She plays the only thing that comes to mind, and can see the sparkle in Katya’s eyes as she recognizes the first chords to the song Trixie was humming a few days ago while getting dressed.

_Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,_  
_And think of you_  
_Caught up in circles confusion-Is nothing new_  
_Flashback, warm nights,_  
_Almost left behind_  
_Suitcases of memories…_

Katya has taken to grab Kim’s blanket from her favorite chair and is spinning around with crazy eyes. Trixie was expecting some sort of build up to the momentum of the song but she guesses when it comes to Katya there is not much waiting around. She extends her arms from one side to the other and kind of vows before Trixie and spreads her legs in the small space there is between the couch and the TV set. 

_After my picture fades and darkness has_  
_Turned to gray_  
_Watching through windows, you're wondering if I'm OK_

Trixie chuckles between the lines and has to readjust the guitar on her hips to be able to continue, but she completely loses it when Katya awkwardly leaps and tries to stand on her toes and twirl. When their eyes meet as she is spinning in place Trixie can see there’s joy in them, and Katya seems younger than she has ever looked. 

_If you're lost you can look,_  
_and you will find me_  
_Time after time_  
_If you fall I will catch you- I'll be waiting_  
_Time after time_

Trixie is now singing with her full voice, her fingers mindlessly repeating the same progression of chords. When she is done the guitar feels heavy in her arms but Katya is smiling like an idiot, flashing her perfect teeth and making the corners of her lips crease. 

“Well that was the most abstract dance to Cyndi Lauper I have ever seen”, Trixie offers

“Abstract? Isn’t that a fancy word used for things or people doing bad shit that’s hard to explain?”. Katya is out of breath but still proudly smiling

“Yes, so it should be your tag line” Trixie teases her. When Katya makes an offended face she continues “It’s basically choreography that does not have a narrative character. It doesn’t tell a story, and it’s not associated with feelings, ideas or any other thing rather than the movement itself”  
Katya puts her hands on her hips and her smile gets bigger in disbelief. 

“Come on, you are kidding me. You are just spitting college definitions at me to make me feel dumb” Katya seems outraged.

“I am, but it’s also true. Come on, you are a painter, wouldn’t you consider abstraction a good thing?”

“Not when you tell me it’s devoted of feelings. Speaking of which, how the hell am I just seeing this emotion from you while you are holding a guitar and singing? I didn’t know you could do that!”

Trixie sets the guitar aside like that is gonna force a change of subject. There wasn’t a moment in the last two minutes where her throat closed, or where her palms got sweaty or where the room started to spin. She doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it and most importantly, she doesn’t want Katya to read too much into it, but Trixie knows it’s kind of a milestone. Some part of her registers Katya telling her she is only now seeing emotion from her and she gets what she means, but that doesn’t make her words hurt any less.

“It’s a silly side thing. I don’t sing or play anymore”. Trixie wants to put the whole thing behind and for the first time in the night she regrets inviting Katya over. 

“Anymore? So you are implying there was a time when you did?” Katya looks genuinely interested and Trixie knows rationally that she doesn’t know anything about her past, but still she doesn’t like this conversation, and the happy energy that was around them moments ago starts to dull.

“I didn’t. I dance, Katya, that’s what I do.” She realizes she sounds dry and that is not Katya’s fault that she brought it up, but she gets defensive.  
Katya must have felt the shift in tone in the room as well because she doesn’t press her forward. They stay there for what feels like an eternity and just as Trixie is about to apologize, she hears the sound of keys from outside of the apartment.

As usual when Kim drags around all of her bags it can take her up to five minute to get thought the door, so Trixie crosses the space and helps her in. Katya lingers behind her but offers her a hand too. 

“Here Kimberly, let me help you with that”, Katya takes the heavy bag from her shoulders.

Trixie sets the boxes on the table, along with some cake Kim must have been able to sneak from the wedding and turns her head to look at her roommate. “Do you know each other?”

Before Kim can answer Katya moves closer to them. “You told me about her, don’t you remember?”, she asks quickly.

Trixie is almost certain she didn’t, or at least she didn’t mention Kim’s name but she guesses after hanging with Katya for three hours she must have talked quite a bit about her friends. Kim looks uncomfortable but Trixie reasons it is because she just got home to a stranger wrapped in her blanket.

“Oh good, decent food. I’m getting a bit tired of deconstructed fancy dishes at weddings at this point”. Kim sits down and grabs one of the remaining containers and Trixie wants to search Katya’s face for some clue of what’s going on, but she seems to be back to dodging her eye contact.

“I should get going. You have rehearsal tomorrow and I actually have a few things to finish by morning too”, Katya offers as she gets her stuff from the couch. Trixie wants to come up with an excuse for her hanging around a bit more, but the magic of their bubble feels to have burst. 

“Text me next week’s schedule when you have a chance” Trixie says as she walks her to the elevator in their hall and Katya hugs her. Trixie can smell Kim’s perfume on her but focuses on the feeling of her bony back as she holds her instead.

When she gets back to her apartment her guitar still lays on the floor mocking her, but the smell of food in the air doesn’t turn her stomach for once. She joins Kim on the couch and grabs a fork and digs into the cake, avoiding her friend’s puzzled expression.

“What?” She finally asks after a while without looking away from her phone, where Katya already texted her five different links to Lana Del Rey’s performances asking _‘Who ruined this bitch’s peaches?’_.

“Nothing” Kim smiles. “You’re about to get your particular type of weird and I’m gonna love every minute of it”.

Trixie rolls her eyes and texts back _“Go to sleep, you’re old and I need you not to get arthritis if I’m to cash my checks”_. She collapses into bed a few minutes after and dreams about Cindy Lauper singing at Coachella and no-one in the audience but Katya painting her while wearing Coppelia’s costume.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _  
> “Do you ever consider that I have a plan for what I want to paint and there’s a reason behind what I tell you to do?” Katya mumbles as she goes over the same trace of painting over and over, emphasizing it._
> 
> _“No. You don’t strike me as the plan-making type exactly, Katya”. Trixie has turned her head and is now fully staring at her. She feels the roughness of the floor pressing against her butt, her arms are tired from clutching her knees close to her boobs and her hair is itchy against her back. She is uncomfortable and suddenly very awake._
> 
> _“Would you talk back like this to your directors or teachers when they are giving you directions?” Katya snaps._
> 
> _“Yes. I can give you a list of complaints about productions that I left on creative differences” Trixie smiles pressing her lips together.  
> _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello strangers! sorry for the wait, but this chapter was really a rollercoaster to write, to the point where I pushed forward and wrote upcoming ones before finishing this. But it's here, in all it's 7K glory. I hope some of you stuck around to see where this is going, and this one definitely sets the wheels a little bit more in motion. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone that either sent me messages on tumblr or commented! I encourage you to do so if you have something to ask or add or to just let me know your favorite parts
> 
> As usual a special thank to our resident dancing expert, Becca @thesemovingparts, in particular in this stressful month for her
> 
> Come say hi over at tumblr.com/cactus-and-a-lily and let me know what you think or in the comments here

_“And then I was thinking that instead of having the boys go front leg, right arm together as they are ‘picking flowers, making house’, they should go front leg, left arm, right arm, back leg, ‘fruit basket’”_

_“Ben, I’m gonna need you to break down your new moves’ names for me before jumping into your weekly corrections”_

“Miss Mattel, off your phone now. Time out is for drinking water and stretching, not for you to lose focus” Alyssa’s twang scolds her. She quickly puts her phone away and decides to deal with Ben’s constant second guessing later. Trixie gulps a decent amount of water that does nothing to cool her off in the tiny room that they are dancing in, and in the back she can still hear Alyssa going on about her time on Broadway and how it was a good thing they didn’t have “internet phones” back then so she wouldn’t be distracted. Trixie loves how she sounds ancient sometimes, like her glory days were back in the 1940s and not some mere years ago. She guesses it all builds up the big persona that is Alyssa: the myth, the legend, the crownless dancing star -and that’s just her way of introducing herself each class. 

Trixie dances easily, pulling her shoulders back and arching her back as the music turns faster and Jay guides them to the finishing sequence under Alyssa’s careful eye. He exaggerates the moves, running his hands over his torso and all the way to his thighs, movements short and fast, undulating to the closing beat of the song. Trixie usually plays dumb in this part, meeting Shangela’s eye and putting on a stupid face to make her laugh and make the sexy moves seem funny. Today, for some unknown reason -probably a lack of caffeine-, she remembers the intensity in Katya’s eye while she was feeling herself in her stupid little living room dance, and Trixie stares directly into the mirror and moves her hips to one side and the other, loving the way her arms grab at her own waist and her legs extend to finish the choreography smoothly. 

“Congratulation ladies, that’s a ten” Alyssa steps forward and Shangela gives her a thumbs up and a clap. “But I need you to reach an eleven for next week”, she adds with frowned lips. “Bigger is always better, remember”.

And that’s as close to a compliment Trixie has gotten lately, so she rides that exhilarated feeling all the way to her apartment, greeting Kim cheerfully as she opens the door and finds her gluing rhinestones to a cheap dollar store tiara. 

“I see we are putting that BA degree to good use again” Trixie smiles. She leans forward and wraps her arms around her friend, beaming as she looks at her creation. What is it about shiny plastic pink things that elicit such joy in her?

Kim looks up with super glue dangerously close to her hair and suspiciously stares at her. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing, can’t I just be happy that I have a pretty free schedule tomorrow and I get to come home to my best friend who is also so glad to see me?” Trixie laughs.

Kim scoffs and drives her attention back to her little stones. Trixie stands in their living room looking around, feeling energy bounce off her. “Wanna do something? Go get dinner or stroll around in the park?”

“Stroll around in the park? Have you joined a My Fair Lady production and I have no idea about it?” Kim glares. 

“No, come on! We deserve to go out and get dressed up! You can take me to that fancy Thai place you’ve been bugging me about for weeks” Kim can’t say no to taking her out to dinner, she had insisted on that for days now. 

“It’s ten pm Trixie, and I had to soak my fingertips in polish remover three times already from gluing them together. Can we just order something? Besides, I made plans with Shea.” when Trixie lights up Kim rushes to add “but I guessed you would have wanted to opt out of it, so we didn’t count you.” 

“Why? I puke one time at Coscoe’s and I’m suddenly banned from going? If that were the case Trannika would have been out of work the first week she started there” Trixie pouts. She really doesn’t want to stay in another night and she doesn’t care that her feet ache and her weekly check hadn’t come in yet.

“That’s not it, I just thought you wouldn’t be interested” Kim sounds apologetic now and it’s getting on Trixie’s nerves. 

“Well, I am. I don’t feel like sitting around and I need a good excuse to not do laundry or stare at my ceiling before my energy runs out.”

Kim still looks hesitant and seems to be making calculations in her head.

“Come on, it’s as if you don’t want me there!” Trixie is really annoyed now and part of her initial cheer has died down. But now she wants to go on a matter of principles and a bit of stubbornness. “Don’t you want me there?”

“Of course I do” Kim sighs. “Yeah, ummm, let me change and we can head out”. 

Trixie feels triumphant and excitedly smiles at her, tossing her shirt on the way to the shower and thinking about maybe finally wearing the black dress she had set aside for Ben’s opening night party. At the rate in which they were changing their mind, that may never happen so she would take the excuse to wear it before the nights got chillier. 

She peaks her head through the door as Kim finishes getting ready in her own room and calls out. “Hey Kim? I’m feeling really happy. Like, things-can-finally-start-turning-around-for-good happy”

Kim looks sheepishly at her and if she didn’t know better, Trixie would have swore she was about to say something or maybe come up with another reason why Trixie shouldn’t join them.

Instead, she looks down and puts on a tender smile. “I’m glad. I’m very very happy about it too”.

 

——————

Trixie is practically bouncing on the sit of the car, telling Kim over and over about some strange prop Shangela had pulled in the middle of class and that had made Trixie scream with laugh, only to earn the both of them a frown from Alyssa. 

“What?” Trixie nudges Kim, who keeps checking the route on her phone app like they hadn’t taken an Uber there two hundred times before. “I know I never nail the tongue pop but you are usually doubling up with laughter over my imitation of her. You even started singing “Big Eyes” the last time I did that”

Kim puts on a smile and locks her screen. “Sorry, I spaced out a bit. I’m a little tired”

Trixie nods and taps her friend’s knee, but for the rest of the ride none of them say another thing. Trixie thinks about texting Katya and telling her about Cornacia -the stupid name was her favorite part- but she guesses she can tell her all about it next time they see each other. Katya would love it and would bully her into braiding popcorn into her hair.

They make their way to the club and Trixie drags Kim to the bar where Shea is waiting. She quickly greets them and turns her attention back to Sasha, who Trixie has learnt Shea doesn’t spend a minute without. As she takes the first sip out of her gin and tonic she wills her mind not to go to her usual cynical place, the one that tells her their friend will soon snap out of the honeymoon phase of her relationship and back to reality, texting them about how Sasha is not that smart after all, and not that funny, and not that creative- nitpicking every little habit that was endearing and finding it annoying. Maybe that won’t be the case, she reasons with herself; maybe that’s just Trixie, maybe people do find someone they want to be with for their whole lives and stay forever stuck in the haze of love. She winces and figures that sounds way too good to be true, and that soon the other shoe will drop and Shea will be back to cruising for girls at the end of shows. Trixie has seen it a million times, and she has learnt not to get attached to any of her friend’s partners, or her own, for the matter. People leave and it’s just easier to count on friends and yourself rather than pour your hopes and expectations on someone else. But when she turns around Shea is still beaming like an idiot and Trixie feels a warmth inside her and a pang of jealousy. 

She sees Trannika’s insane hair poking from one of the tables in a corner and grabs Kim to go over. Kim, never the dancing fan, instead insists on hitting the dance floor and Trixie walks with her to the middle of it, taking her in a close embrace and flailing her arms around while doing some of her signature out of class crazy moves. Kim is smiling but not paying attention and Trixie jokingly pouts, finally getting her to move and starting to spin. When the song ends her friend excuses herself and makes her way to the back of the club again, leaving her alone and squashed between the other people on the dance floor. Trixie can tell something is bothering Kim and reasons is best to leave her be and discuss it later, but after two songs she gets bored and searches the crowd for any familiar face.

She curses the fact that she decided to hop on a pair of her higher heels to go with her new dress and scans the room for an empty chair where she can rest and text Kim. After a while she manages to make her way to the booths where she saw Trannika at the beginning of the night and can spot Kim sitting next to her. When she gets nearer Trixie has to adjust her eyes to make sure she is not going crazy, as she sees Katya sipping a red bull straight out of the can and talking to them, gesturing with her hands like she does when she is pissed. Trixie wishes the music would let her hear what they are talking about without getting closer, but the three of them are so caught up in their conversation that they fail to notice her until she is standing next to them.

They suddenly go silent and Trixie feels like she is the mom that caught her children smoking or the coworker who suddenly discovered the entire office is throwing her a surprise party. All she knows is that she is not welcomed here, and judging by the terrified look in Kim’s face, that they were certainly not expecting her. Trannika looks suddenly sober and alert and Katya …. well, Katya seems to be the only one Trixie can focus on right now. 

“So … this is the way I find out you are dating one of my friends?” Trixie tries to sound funny but she can already hear the edge in her own voice.

“Oh, they wish” Katya laughs, and Trixie is sure she is going insane but she can tell is terribly forced. “I was just coming to collect Adore’s paycheck from the other night” she adds and Trannika nods her head without saying a word.

“I thought you said you didn’t see much of her lately. Pretty odd choice to have you pick up her money”. If the situation was different, Trixie would be mesmerized by Katya’s long hair braided to one side and the way her black bra is showing through her shirt. She knows that outfit will make it pretty hard to focus the next time they see each other out in the day, away from this little booth-of-doom where the tension is so high the music seems to have died down.

“She just couldn’t make it and I remembered Katya was here the other night, so I reasoned it was better than having the check lying around” Trannika says. Trixie finds it bizarre how Katya’s name rolls off her friend’s tongue, and looks between the three of them. It feels like she is playing a round of poker she desperately wants to win.

Katya grabs her purse and stands up, Trixie towering over her with the additional inches her shoes provide. “It was nice to see you all again, but I should get going”. For someone boosting constantly about her free schedule, Katya seems to be in a rush all the wrong times, Trixie thinks. Kim is seemingly still fascinated with the pattern of the damp ring her drink has left on the table and Trannika smiles at them like she is a luncheon lady listening to small talk.

When the strong smell of Katya’s wooden and sweet strong perfume has left its trail, she turns around and smiles at Trixie, the first genuine interaction they’ve had in the short amount of time they shared beneath the colorful lights of the club.

“You look nice in that dress, Lepeshinskaya. Black really becomes you”. Even in the odd situation they are stuck in, Trixie blushes. And just as suddenly, Katya is lost in the sea of people making their way out.

“So…. Dance floor?” Kim offers. Trixie downs the remaining of her drink, feeling the strong alcohol that has settled in the bottom of the glass burning her throat and nods. The rest of the night goes by in a haze, half a drunken stupor and half good old fashioned disassociation. 

When they are home later she sits on the bathroom floor, feeling the cold tiles wake her up, counting back from fifty to zero, trying to even her breathing. Kim knocks softly on the door and Trixie splashes water in her face and brushes her teeth, and then makes an excuse about being too tired to take her makeup off before darting for her bedroom. She stays awake until 4 am, damping the sheets with her cold sweat. 

 

—————

Trixie is no stranger to exhaustion. Being a struggling dancer who had to work long hours to pay bills had that effect on you, and since most of her friends were in the same boat she didn’t even brought it up anymore. Raven, her manager at the restaurant, was rumored to have been quite active in her performers days, so she was used to hiring wannabe artists as waitresses, and as long as you showed up and managed to tend tables while half asleep, she couldn’t care. Trixie had tried to ask her coworkers when she had just started why a successful performer who could have made it big ended up running an overpriced café, but all she got out of Fame back then was a mere “it’s LA, the tide changes as quick as fashion fades”. Now Fame was booked around the country doing people’s make up and most of the girls who started working with Trixie were out of the restaurant and somewhat thriving. So rather than no one making it, it seemed like success was a coveted price only a few could get their hands on. After three years at the same position and less than decent dancing gigs under her belt, Trixie can picture herself a few years along the road, managing shift schedules and baring the same bored face Raven had whenever she was interviewing new girls. Even Kim and Trannika complaint about their jobs, but at least they were putting themselves out there and doing what they wanted. Trixie smiled and congratulated them, the same way she had done when Violet had announced the new tour she had scored or when Jinkx had set up a plan for their singing show, but the reality was that Trixie was starting to feel the draining defeat that came with years of auditioning and not getting ahead.

It had been months since her schedule was as packed as it was now, and between ballet rehearsals, Alyssa’s exigence and Ben changing so many parts of their play to the point where Jinkx threaten to quit twice a week, sleep was beginning to seem like a luxury. Trixie enjoys the adrenaline of running around the city feeling like she is actually doing something that is gonna pay off later, but she knows better than to take this as a sign of success. She is extremely careful to not get comfortable before life pulls the metaphorical rug off you. Turns out being constantly alert is extremely tiring.

That’s how she finds herself curled up in Katya’s studio floor, fighting the weight off her eyelids to stay awake. It doesn’t help that instead of the heavy Riot grrrl rock Katya sometimes blasted she had opted on some Brian Eno’s dulling playlist, each song connecting to the other in a way that seemed so seamless Trixie feels she was stuck in call waiting with a sales representative.

“You could have literally picked any girl off the street for this. I don’t understand how my dancing skills are useful to you if I’m gonna be catatonic on the floor”. Trixie gets grumpy when she is tired and can feel the annoyance in the inflection of her voice.

“You’re right”, Katya agrees, not looking up from her work. 

Trixie is facing the wall on Katya’s side, her eyes fixed on the decaying bricks around an old shelf. Usually when she is bored she studies Katya’s face, following the slightly crooked line of her nose, counting the different shades of blonde her hair turns when the sun hits it.

“So, what then?”

Katya sighs and Trixie can tell she is getting on her nerves. Good. She wants to push Katya to a point where she addresses their encounter at the club, where she gives any indication that Trixie didn’t imagine the tense air between the four of them. She was even quieter than usual today when she had left Trixie in, and between the two of them they had exchanged no more than fifteen words in an hour.

“Do you ever consider that I have a plan for what I want to paint and there’s a reason behind what I tell you to do?” Katya mumbles as she goes over the same trace of painting over and over, emphasizing it. 

“No. You don’t strike me as the plan-making type exactly, Katya”. Trixie has turned her head and is now fully staring at her. She feels the roughness of the floor pressing against her butt, her arms are tired from clutching her knees close to her boobs and her hair is itchy against her back. She is uncomfortable and suddenly very awake.

“Would you talk back like this to your directors or teachers when they are giving you directions?” Katya snaps. 

“Yes. I can give you a list of complaints about productions that I left on creative differences” Trixie smiles pressing her lips together. She knows she would never second guess Michelle’s directions like this, and that she learnt to go with the flow with Ben’s strange directional style rather than speak up, and even picturing talking back to Alyssa is frightening -but Katya doesn’t need to know that. She is finally poking the sleeping monster awake, and she knows there is no stopping now, not when she wants to see how further she can push Katya.

But suddenly her red lips are smiling and she is holding her brush between her teeth, the big canvas discarded and her sketch book in hand.

“What?” Trixie asks and turns away.

“No, stay like that. You wanna be a bitch, be a bitch. At least I’m gonna use it”. Katya’s voice sounds deep. Trixie wants to go back to hiding her face between her hair but Katya is so entrained by her sudden fit that it feels like there’s a magnetic force making them lock eyes together. 

She wants to stay mad but after a few minutes, after days of restraining herself, her anger shifts to some kind of sadness and defeat. When Katya finishes quickly drawing her and gets up to turn all the lights back without saying a word to her, Trixie can feel her eyes pricking and getting damp, and turns. She wants to explain how blindsided she felt about seeing Katya at the club, she wants to tell her she wishes she had stayed and hung with them, to proudly introduce her to her friends and how she felt robbed of spending time together - but instead she gets dressed in silence and the tears thankfully subdue.

“Trixie…”

She had been so caught up in her own thoughts that Katya’s voice seems to come off from a speaker, startling her. Trixie wonders how long she was standing there, staring at her back as she takes a deep breath, tossing a lighter between her hands. Trixie feels her guts twist. She is ready for Katya to tell her she has made everything uncomfortable, that she can’t draw Trixie anymore, that she was trying something out and it didn’t work. Trixie is ready for the rejection, but Katya isn’t looking at her like that. There’s no resolution in her eyes. She looks almost apologetic and guilty. Trixie wants to run home but it hits her that maybe there are two people in the room not speaking their minds. Trixie, who was known to storm into any room and say and do as she pleased, who always had a handy joke to diffuse the attention off her when she felt like it, who had drove several teachers insane in her time and wore that as a badge of honor, can’t ask Katya what she really is doing there, what they are doing at all. She re adjusts her purse in her shoulders and looks at Katya one more time, who seems particularly tiny standing by the window and pleading with her eyes. 

“I’ll see you in a few days then”.

 

———-

Trixie gets to ballet rehearsal with only moments to spare, which means few minutes to stretch. Yara and Alexis, the only girls older than her in the group are mindlessly chatting away and she knows she should be at the front of the group, ready to revise the finale number. Next to Michelle is Morgan, the assistant director and any dancer’s nightmare. Michelle takes a step back so it seems she will run their rehearsal today. Morgan quickly walks between them correcting their posture as they dance, pointing out readjustments and keeping a close eye on their finishes. Trixie can feel her muscles tense up out of exhaustion and stress, but she carries on.

She leaps, jumps and twists to the music, knowing she is pushing herself further than she should, specially after pretty much throwing herself to practice without stretching. She could speak up and Michelle would understand her- hell, even Morgan wouldn’t be as ruthless as to let her hurt herself. But she dances and she puts every frustration there. Every single time she had asked Trannika to take down videos of her singing, every concerned look from Kim when she saw her with nothing but a towel, every message from her mom ranting about her throwing her youth away, every word Katya didn’t speak at the studio. The room spins and she thinks of Katya’s eyes when she ditched the club and how vulnerable she looked after their argument. 

Trixie hears the gasp in the room before she can actually pinpoint the reason. She falls to the floor in slow motion and the heat in her ankle shoots electricity all the way to her knee. Michelle is beside her in a second, clutching her leg in her hands, and Morgan looks disappointed. Trixie wants nothing more than to get up and prove everyone wrong, to show them that she can actually earn her spot in the production without needing Violet to step down, but when she makes a move to stand up the pain is too much to bear. 

“Miss Devayne, take Miss Mattel to ice her ankle” Morgan states pausing the music. Trixie hates that she calls them that even if she is the same age as her, but she seems genuinely concerned.

“I can put a bandage on it and carry on” Trixie stubbornly says.

“Go home and rest. We don’t need a sprain turning into anything worse and to recast the whole thing again” Morgan tells her, like she's the one running the damn thing. ChiChi is looking softly at her like she usually does, and Trixie wants to take her anger on her, on Morgan’s snooty attitude, on anyone but herself.

She limps out of the studio and minutes later Ivy follows them.

“Michelle wanted to make sure you called a cab or that someone could come and pick you up. You were really out of it for a moment there girl”. 

Trixie shakes her head -she knows Kim is working and she thinks for a moment about calling Katya, but even if they texted daily Trixie feels weird about asking her for a favor. It’s another nice reminder that whatever banter they have, it doesn’t constitute a friendship or, well, anything else.   
Ivy looks concerned and ChiChi, ever the good samaritan, volunteers to help Trixie get to her apartment. Once she is able to collapse on her couch she texts Kim and Raven, who seems angry as usual but eventually tells Trixie to take as much time as she needs and advises her to ice her ankle and elevate it. Trixie wonders how many sprains Raven had to nurse walking around in the insane high heels she still wears to work, and she types out the next message that she is dreading sending. She hasn’t talk to Katya since their charged moment at the studio at the start of the week, but she has to let her know she is not gonna make it tomorrow.

_“Ugh, I’m sorry. Sitting on the floor for an hour looking pretty and catatonic doesn’t sound as bad now, huh?”_ Katya quickly replies. 

_“Fuck you”_ Trixie writes back and drowns two pain killer pills. At least things seem to be back to normal.

 

———————————————

After a week Trixie is back on her feet - or, at least figuratively. She makes her way to the café, a full face of make up just because she needed something to do that morning instead of tossing around in bed. She got up at 6 and sneaked into Kim’s room, going through her case where she kept all the good stuff she used for her big shot clients. Kim wouldn’t be angry; lately she was overly kind to Trixie, avoiding any chance to set her off and bringing her ice packs for her ankle every 2 hours. 

Trixie digs out a small box with fancy lettering on the package and she carefully tears it open, unsticking a stack of false eyelashes with some tweezers. When she looks at her reflection one hour later her eyes seem more open and prominent, and her cheeks are flushing with a shimmery pink. Someday she misses that about performing: looking up from her guitar and trying to make up faces in the crowd, connecting eyes with someone in the audience and knowing that they are actually seeing past her, listening, almost being one with her. Dancing gives her that, that placebo rush, without having to actually be herself on stage; she can be Coppelia, or the femme fatales Alyssa and Jay always set them up to be, or the energetic ingénues that Ben loves to write -that’s enough, enough for now, and has been so for a while. She digs out her favorite lipstick from the bottom of her purse and then brushes her hair, staring at herself in the mirror. The contrast of a full face of makeup and a worn-out deep mustard hoodie makes her laugh, but she likes how she looks, crazy and pulled together- an improved, enhanced version of herself. She tights the bandage around her ankle carefully and laces her sneakers. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give it up for Wisconsin’s own injured dancing doll: Tracy Martel. Oh sis, you look snatched for the gods” Aja quips. 

Trixie smiles because even if it’s a little sad to admit, her interactions with the girls in the café are as close as she has to a sisterhood. She would get a similar reaction from Shangela or ChiChi, but every compliment surrounding the dancing environment is always a bit tarnished with competition. Here she is just Trixie, bad moods and tired face and all. Even Raven emerges from her office, informing her she is on cashier duty today so she can stay off her foot. Trixie smiles gratefully at her, but one hour in she remembers why she hates being stuck behind the register: just too much time off to think and let her mind run wild. She checks her phone and sends Kim a sneaky photo of Raven’s tan, but after fifteen more minutes the clock doesn’t seem to advance. She could be answering some of her old messages -one from her baby sister all the way in New York asking about her injury- but the sight of the increasing notification’s number makes her heart race. 

“Ugh, cuddly teenagers, gross” Thorgy’s voice wakes her up. The bright morning sun has lost its intensity a bit and the place has quieted down. It must have been hours since her shift started and Trixie clenches her fist to fully wake up. She must have tuned off and worked on autopilot, and that was never a good sign. She glances to where her coworker is nodding and sees two kids embracing, both their trendy coffees abandoned in the table. The girl is almost straddling the guy and Trixie rolls her eyes. Those cost 6 dollars each, and hormones aside, that’s just waste of good caffeine.

The door opens and Trixie looks up and has to dig her nails further into her flesh. Not to engage in the “pinch-myself-in-case-im-dreaming” cliche, but to stay fully alert for whatever is about to happen next. Because it is going to be interesting, for sure. She can tell her back straightens automatically and that she is biting the inside of her cheek. 

“Hello there honey, what can we get you?” Thorgy asks her. Trixie can’t suppress a laugh as she witness the surrealism of her kooky coworker addressing her kooky painter gal. Well, not _her gal_ \- just, you know, her painter. Or whatever. The real question is what is Katya doing here, but she is cool with sitting back and watching her try to navigate a conversation with Thorgy, the only person Trixie knows that goes on as many tangents as Katya when talking. 

But she can’t help herself, so she has to ask.

“Are you full on stalking me at this point?”

“Excuse me?” Katya laughs. Is not a forced chuckle like at the club or a smirk like at the studio the last time when Trixie snapped. 

“I don’t have to meet you for at least another hour and I still have 30 minutes before I clock out” Trixie explains. She sees Thorgy interested look and can sense Aja’s eyes on her as well. 

“I know. You told me you didn’t get off until four”. Katya sips the coffee she just got from someone. Thorgy maybe? Raven herself - who has popped from her office to apparently sneak around an see what is happening?

“And how do you know were I was? Did you GPSed my clothes?” Trixie fully knows she is starting to sound bratty. She wants to go for funny and playful, but her dry tone always betrays her. Apparently not with Katya, who is still smiling as she hands her a five dollar bill.

“I have your resume, I know where you work. So does the NSA and Facebook, by the way, they are the ones you should be wary of, though”. She leans in on the counter and rests her elbows there, and Trixie wants to wipe that satisfied smile off her face. She also wants to sink back into her chair to take distance from her strong wooden perfume that remind her of her proximity at Coscoe’s.

“She is right, you know” Thorgy adds in. Trixie shoots her a look that’s begging for her to shut up, but with the only customers at the cafe still being the groping kids, she guesses this conversation is much more exciting to her coworkers. 

“Did someone tell you your accent is super strong when you are nervous?” Katya throws in. Trixie can hear Aja’s laugh from all the other side of the room and she starts feeling trapped behind the counter. 

“it’s also the case when I’m pissed” she says through her teeth.

“Anyways, I drove here because I reasoned you wouldn’t be able to limp your way to the studio”. Oh. So Katya was being nice. The bitch. Now Trixie feels like shit.

“Oh”

“Yeah, oh.” She smiles. She looks down and Trixie can see a glimmer of second-guessing in her eyes, a small crack in her seemingly constant self confidence.

“thank you, I …. I still have a bit left to go here, but sit down and enjoy your coffee. It’s on me” She tries to give her back her money but Katya shakes her head and starts to make her way to a nearby chair.

“Trixie, you can go.” Raven voice calls from behind her. When she sees Trixie’s startled expression, she gets a little bit quieter so only she can hear, “she paints you naked, can drive and makes you smile. I can handle the register for half an hour for that”. Trixie wishes for earth to open up and swallow her whole. She will have to go back and figure out how her boss knows that there’s a girl who paints her naked every week, and probably murder Pearl and Aja for it- but for now, she thanks her and drags her tired body to Katya’s table, careful to not meet Thorgy’s amused face.

When they get to the street Trixie looks around for Katya’s car, secretly curious to see what kind of mess she rides. Growing up in the mid-west she is used to judging people by their cars and specially how they look inside. Katya’s must be a reflection of her weird personality. She can’t wait to face it.

“Okay, _Maximova_ , you get the goofy helmet” Katya calls out.

Trixie tries to focus on the look of her, ratty cardigan crunched at her knees as she is sitting in a tiny scooter, her own helmet squashing her curly hair. Okay. So this is what Katya drives. Mystery solved.

Trixie tries to keep her face neutral but rolls her eyes, “Its not gonna look goofy on me.”

“Well, it looks goofy on almost everyone” Katya leans in and adjusts the strap around her chin, and there’s that whiff of perfume again. Trixie bats her eyelashes exaggeratedly and Katya smiles, “well, look at that, you really pull it off”. 

She offers her hand and helps Trixie sit behind her, and with a pang of panic Trixie realizes she is supposed to do what she has done every time she got on a motorcycle. She has to will her arms to move and wrap themselves around Katya’s small waist and hold on. But Katya doesn’t wait for her to do so before quickly turning the ignition on, so Trixie clings to her on reflex. Fast, like she hasn’t have time to think about it. And it’s better that way because now she can feel Katya twist beneath her hands as she makes the scooter turn, and focus on how the wool from her cardigan scratches her wrists. Trixie guesses they both look pretty ridiculous, but she keeps her face off Katya’s line of sight and smiles.

 

—————————-

They get to the studio and Katya has an exhausted but giddy smile on her face, like she just run and won a marathon or had five coffees in a row. Trixie it’s a little apprehensive and Katya must have read it in her eyes because she tries to smooth her shirt and offers a “I just fucking love driving”. Trixie has been avoiding getting behind the wheel ever since she moved to LA, and she kind of misses it, but she always reasons predicting a meltdown if she gets stuck in traffic is not a good trait for a driver. Still, driving a silly old Italian motorcycle seems to work perfectly for Katya and she looks up from where she is opening the doors and raises her brows “it’s the misunderstood cousin of big old motorcycles, don’t be so judgmental”. Eerie. It’s like Katya is really a witch who can read minds sometimes. Trixie doesn’t exactly rule that out as a possibility. 

“Oh fuck, I really didn’t think this through” she curses. Trixie joins her where she is standing and gets what she means. Stairs. A whole set of fucking stairs mocking her ankle in recovery. 

Trixie shifts nervously and puts her arm around Katya’s shoulders. She freezes in place and Trixie braces herself for the twisting of her body letting go, but instead Katya grabs her by the waist and helps her hop step by step. Her sweat mixes perfectly with her perfume, and half the way they have to stop because its straining both of them too much. 

“I really am an idiot, right?” Katya breathes out. She still holds Trixie in place, who is trying really hard not to show the pain in her eyes or the effect Katya’s hand on her body has. Maybe the numbing of her foot also prevents blood from rushing to her head because she hears the next words before she has a chance to stop them.

“Why did you bail on me at the club?”

Katya is still not looking at her and her grip on her waist tightens. Trixie can feel the sweat condensing on her back and suddenly the little space in the middle of the stairs seems smaller. Suffocating. 

Katya’s voice is a hoarse whisper, like she hasn’t spoke in a while. It certainly has the smoker raspiness Trixie has began to grow fond of even if she wouldn’t admit it. “I… just had to go. Nothing personal, _Plisetskaya_ I was just in a ru-“

“yeah yeah, let me guess: you were just in a rush, Adore needed her money, Ginger needed the studio, your cat was alone - insert Russian ballet dancer name here.” Trixie cuts her off. As they are getting closer and closer to the studio, Trixie starts to lose her patience. All the nice things Katya had done completely forgotten by now. 

“Just like the other day in my apartment when Kim arrived. But hey, it’s not personal. It never is apparently”. There’s something else there, and Trixie can already tell, but she tries to keep it at bay. Still labels it as sadness or, more accurately, as anger. That’s just what it is, nothing more. And if she lets go of Katya’s grip it has nothing to do with the tight feeling in her chest. 

She can’t even look at her, suddenly embarrassed of even brining up to the subject in the first place. She limps the rest of the steps and Katya prudently doesn’t try to hold her again. Still Trixie can feel her carefully walking behind her, looking after the way she stumbles a bit with every move. By now Trixie is sure she has worsen her injury and her foot feels burning inside her sneakers. Her meticulously applied make up must be melting with sweat and strain and her false eyelashes poke her in the eye. By the time she reaches the studio door she leans all her body on the door frame, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw. She can tell Katya walks pass her because, damn, her perfume still lingers. 

When she opens her eyes Katya is already setting everything up and she preps her brushes with her back turn to her, like when she first started painting her. Trixie makes her way slowly to the chair and she thinks that if the tension wasn’t so palpable in the air, they would both be laughing at the sight of her limping and completely naked. 

“Elevate your foot on the chair, Trixie. You already pushed yourself too far” Katya instructs her. _Trixie_. She never thought the sound of her own name would cut through her like a blade.

“No, it’s okay, I can do whatever you had planned”. If anything, she at least still owns Katya professionalism. 

“This was the pose I had planned” Katya looks up at her through her lashes and there it is again, that something Trixie feels and that she is very quick not to dwell upon. “I was trying not to cause you additional pain”. Trixie laughs a bitter laugh that they both ignore. 

“At least it’s comfortable” she reasons.

“Yeah, and the shades of purple on your foot look so interesting people are going to accuse me of _“violettomania”_. I was never quite the Impressionist, but it could work”, Katya shrugs. 

One hours is usually less than it takes Katya to get a whole painting done, but today 60 minutes seem unbearable to Trixie, even if she is laying with her whole body but her leg resting on the floor. 

On the ride home Trixie grips Katya’s waist but not too strong. They make a few awkward jokes until Trixie finds her keys, and Katya lets her lean in on her all the way to her elevator, but she doesn’t offer to walk her to her apartment and Trixie doesn’t invite her in either. 

“Can I text you?” Katya asks before getting back on the elevator. It’s not one of her random questions, and Trixie knows it. She thinks of all the awkwardness and the … broken heart she dealt with today - no use tiptoeing around the term-, but also about the thought of another week of no news from Katya. No text to look forward, not silly jokes while she tries to mix colors together. She thinks of silence and it deafens her. 

“Sure. Go nuts on the Bolshoi’s wikipedia and find more nicknames.” Trixie smiles.

The last thing she sees before the doors closes is Katya’s smile as well, and for a second, it seems like a sad one.


End file.
